Marshall Islands document photos online

The Marshall Islands hands its citizens one of the world's most unusual travel privileges: under the Compact of Free Association with the United States, holders of a Marshallese passport may live and work in America indefinitely as nonimmigrants, with no visa and no expiration date on their employment authorization. When they enter the US their passport is stamped "CFA/MIS," and a Marshallese passport paired with the matching Form I-94 counts as a single "List A" document proving both identity and the right to work. Few passports on Earth open the American labor market this freely, making this tiny Pacific nation's travel document quietly extraordinary.

• Passport power As of 2026 the Marshallese passport ranks 36th on the Henley Passport Index, granting visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 127 countries and territories.
• Document code Marshallese passports carry the ISO state code MHL, and a 2016 mutual visa-waiver agreement lets holders enter the entire Schengen Area without a visa.
• Work rights Thanks to the Compact of Free Association, a Marshallese citizen can work in the United States for an unlimited period and writes "N/A" in the employment-expiration field of the US Form I-9.
• Currency The Marshall Islands has no national banknotes of its own and uses the US dollar as its official currency, having never issued a paper currency.
• Digital money In 2018 the country passed the Sovereign Currency Act to make a blockchain token called the SOV a second legal tender alongside the dollar, but the law was repealed in 2025 before any coin circulated.
• Ship registry This nation of about 42,000 people runs one of the largest ship registries on the planet, with International Registries operating the flag-of-convenience fleet from an office in Reston, Virginia.
• Nuclear history On 1 March 1954 the US detonated Castle Bravo at Bikini Atoll, a 15-megaton blast about a thousand times stronger than the Hiroshima bomb and still the largest nuclear test in American history.
• Navigation Marshallese navigators historically read the ocean using "stick charts" (rebbelib) made of palm ribs and seashells that mapped wave patterns and swells rather than coastlines.
• Independence The Marshall Islands gained full sovereignty in 1986 through the Compact of Free Association, ending decades as part of a US-administered United Nations trust territory.