Most visa questions end in “which visa, and how do I apply?”. A small but important set of trips end differently: they are not permitted at all. We built a passport travel-restrictions tracker that records every (passport → destination) pair we have verified as blocked, why it is blocked, and the source — because the worst possible error in visa data is telling someone to “just apply for a visa” for a journey that cannot legally be made.
The Israel bloc is the largest cluster
Most prohibited pairs involve Israel. A group of states that have no diplomatic relations with Israel — including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Afghanistan — do not permit travel by, or to, the other. In several cases the bar is mutual and written into the document itself: Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia issue passports that are explicitly not valid for travel to Israel.
The US entry proclamation
A 2026 US presidential proclamation suspends or sharply restricts the entry of nationals of several countries — among them Afghanistan, Iran, Yemen, Myanmar and Haiti — across both immigrant and non-immigrant visa categories. Unlike a standing diplomatic rupture, this is fast-moving policy that is reviewed periodically, so we date it and re-check it rather than treating it as fixed.
Frozen conflicts and special permits
Not every restriction is a clean “ban”. Armenia and Azerbaijan keep a closed border in both directions. Travel between mainland China and Taiwan happens on special permits — a Taiwan entry permit for mainland residents, the PRC “Mainland Travel Permit” for Taiwanese — not on the passport. And Russian nationals can still apply for Schengen visas but face much tighter scrutiny since the EU suspended visa facilitation. We grade each pair as prohibited, restricted or advisory so the nuance is not lost.
Why we date every row
These rules move more than any others in travel. The Abraham Accords normalised several of Israel’s relationships; entry proclamations are revisited; borders reopen. Every entry in the tracker carries a source and a verification date, and the volatile ones are re-reviewed on a rolling basis. Always confirm the current rule with the relevant government before booking. Our method is set out in our Editorial & Data Standards.