Passport

For other meanings, see Passport (disambiguation).

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Chinese passport from the Qing dynasty, 24th Year of the Guangxu Reign (1898)

Montenegran passport 1887

A passport is issued by a national government, to identify the bearer as a citizen of the issuing country.

Passports are connected with the right to some protection abroad by the national government of the country of which one is a citizen, and with the right to enter the country of which one is a citizen. However, the right to protection does not arise from a passport, nor does the right to enter. Each right arises from citizenship. A passport proves the citizenship of the bearer, and, consequently, his right to protection and his right to enter.

History

Cover of a German biometric passport

File:British-passport.jpg

The inside front cover and first page of a non-biometric British passport

One of the earliest references to passports is found in the biblical book of Nehemiah. Circa 450 B.C., Nehemiah, an official serving King Artaxerxes of Persia, asked leave to travel to Judea. The king granted leave, and gave to Nehemiah a letter "to the governors beyond the river" requesting safe passage for him as he travelled through their lands.

The term "passport" likely does not derive from sea ports, but likely derives from a medieval document required to pass through the gate ("porte") of a city wall. In medieval Europe, those documents werer issuable to travellers by local authorities, and a document generally contained a list of towns and cities into which a document holder was permitted to pass. On the whole, documents were not required for travel to sea ports, which were considered open trading points, but documents were required to travel inland from sea ports.

Early passports included a description of the passport holder. Attachment of photographs to passports began in the early decades of the 20th century, when photography became widespread.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, passports were not required, on the whole, for international travel in Europe, and crossing a border was easy. Consequently, comparatively few people had passports. The breakdown of the European passport system of the early part of the nineteenth century was a result of rail travel. Trains, used extensively from the mid-19th century onward, travelled rapidly, carried numerous passengers, and crossed many borders. Those factors made enforcement of passport laws difficult. The general reaction was abolition of passport requirements. Exceptions were repressive countries, such as the Ottoman Empire and czarist Russia, which maintained passport requirements for international travel. In addition, each of the Ottoman Empire and czarist Russia maintained an internal-passport system to control travel within it.

During World War I, European governments had an interest in keeping out spies, keeping in citizens with useful skills, and retaining potential manpower, so passports were required at borders. After the war, controls were not rescinded, but became standard procedure, though not without controversy. British tourists of the 1920s complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions, which led to a "nasty dehumanisation".

In 1920, the League of Nations held a conference on passports and through tickets. Passport guidelines resulted from the conference, which was followed up by conferences in 1926 and 1927. The United Nations held a travel conference in 1963, but passport guidelines did not result from it. Passport standardisation came about in 1980, under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

Types

Ordinary passport, also called tourist passport

Issued to average citizens.

Cover of an ordinary Azerbaijani passport

Official passport, also called service passport

Issued to government employees for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependants.

Diplomatic passport

Issued to diplomats and consuls for work-related travel, and to acompanying dependants. Having a diplomatic passport is not the equivalent of having diplomatic immunity. A grant of diplomatic status, a privilege of which is diplomatic immunity, has to come from the government of the country in relation to which diplomatic status is claimed. Also, having a diplomatic passport does not mean visa-free travel. A holder of a diplomatic passport usually has to obtain a diplomatic visa, even if a holder of an ordinary passport may enter a country visa-free or may obtain a visa on arrival.

Rarely, a diplomatic passport is given to a foreign citizen with no passport of his own, such as an exiled VIP who lives, by invitation, in a foreign country. An example is Constantine II of Greece, who has a Danish diplomatic passport.

Emergency passport, also called temporary passport

Issued to persons whose passports were lost or stolen, and who do not have time to obtain replacement passports.

The first and second pages of an ordinary Azerbaijani passport

Collective passport

Issued to defined groups for travel to particular destinations. School children on a school trip, for example, can be covered by a group passport.

Family passport

Issued to a family -- father, mother, son, daughter. Among the family members, there is one passport holder. He may travel alone, or with another family member, or with other family members. A family member who is not the passport holder must travel with the passport holder.

There are as well alien's passports, internal passports, and laissez-passer, none of which is a passport.

An alien's passport is a document issued under certain circumstances, such as statelessness, to non-citizen residents.

An internal passport is a document which controls movement within a country. Examples include the iqama in Saudi Arabia, the internal passport of the Soviet Union, and the hukou residence-registration system in mainland China.

A laissez-passer is an equivalent of a passport. Laissez-passer are issued by international organisations to their officers and employees for official travel.

Characteristics

Passports have numerical or alphanumerical designators assiged by the issuing authority.

Passport standards are recommended to national governments by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The standard format includes, on a passport cover, the name of the issuing country, a national symbol, a description of the document (passport, official passport, diplomatic passport), and, if the passport is biometric, the biometric-passport symbol. Inside, there is a title page, also naming the country. This is followed by a data page, on which there is information about the bearer and the issuing authority, although passports of some European Union member states provide that information on the inside back cover. There are blank pages available for foreign countries to affix visas, and to stamp for entries and exit.

Machine-readable passports are standardised by the ICAO. There is a zone in which most of the information written as text is also printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition.

Conformable with ICAO standards, a biometric passport has a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip, which contains data about the passport bearer, a photograph of him in digital format, and data about the passport.

Many countries issue biometric passports. The stated reasons for RFID chips in passports are clearance through immigration and prevention of identity fraud. These reasons are disputed by privacy advocates. Governments are reluctant to acknowledge privacy concerns.

Although many countries issue biometric passports, few introduced the equipment needed to read them at ports of entry. In the absence of an international standard, it is not possible for one country to read the biometric information in passports issued by another country.

A passport contains a message from the nominal issuing officer, such as the secretary of state or the minister of external affairs. The passport message, usually near the front of a passport, requests that the bearer of the passport be allowed to pass freely, and further requests that, in the event of need, the bearer be granted assistance.

For example, the passport message in an Israeli passport states in Hebrew (read from right to left) and in English:

שר הפנים של מדינת ישראל מבקש בזה את כל הנוגעים בדבר להרשות לנושא דרכון זה לעבור ללא עכוב והפרעה ולהושיט לו במקרה הצורך את ההגנה והעזרה הדרושה

The Minister of the Interior of the State of Israel hereby requests all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer of this passport to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford him such assistance and protection as may be necessary.

Another example is the New Zealand passport, which states in English and in Maori:

The Governor-General in the Realm of New Zealand requests in the Name of Her Majesty The Queen all whom it may concern to allow the holder to pass without delay or hindrance and in case of need to give all lawful assistance and protection.

He tono tēnei nā te Kāwana-Tianara O te Whenua o Aotearoa i raro i te Ingoa o Kuini Erihāpeti ki te hunga e tika ana kia kaua e akutōtia, e whakakōpekatia te tangata mau i te uruwhenua nei i ana haere, ā, i te wā e hiahiatia ai me āwhina, me manaaki.

Other examples: United Kingdom; United States.

Languages

An international conference on passports and through tickets, held by the League of Nations in 1920, recommended that passports be issued in French, historically the language of diplomacy, and one other language. Nowadays, the ICAO recommends that passports be issued in English and French, or in the national language of the issuing country and in either English or French.

• A passport of Barbados is tri-lingual: English, French, and Spanish.
• Belgium allows its citizens to choose which of its three official languages (Dutch, French, German) is to appear first.
• The face page of a Hungarian passport ("Útlevél" in Hungarian, lit. "Roadletter") is in Hungarian only. Inside, there is a second, Hungarian-English bilingual, page. The personal-information page offers Hungarian, English, and French explanations of the details. An additional page, which has explanations in English, French, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic, was added in recent years.
• Passports issued by member states of the European Union bear all of the official languages of the EU. These are not printed in each location, however. Two or three languages are printed at the relevant point, followed by a number which refers to a passport page dedicated to translations into all the remaining languages.
• United States passports were once issued only in English, then were issued in English and French, and are now issued in English, French, and Spanish. The addition of Spanish, which is used regularly in Puerto Rico, was effected during the second Clinton administration.
• Russian Federation passports are printed in Russian and English. Passports of the USSR were printed in Russian and English, and used French transliterations for names.
• The first page of a Libyan passport is in Arabic only. The last page has an English equivalent of the information on the first page. Similar arrangements are found in other Arab-country passports, such as those of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
• Passports issued by New Zealand are in English and Māori.
• Indian passports are in Hindi and English.

Common designs

File:DK Passport Page 1-2.jpg

An interior page of a biometric Danish passport with a feature of the EU common design (2006)

The design and layout of passports of the member states of the European Union are a result of consensus and recommendation, rather than of directive. Passports are issued by member states, not by the EU. The data page can be at the front or at the back of a passport, and there are small design differences to indicate which member state is the issuer. The covers of ordinary passports are burgundy-red, with "European Union" written in the national language or languages. Below that are the name of the country, a national symbol, the word or words in the national language or languages for "passport", and, at the bottom, the symbol for a biomteric passport.

In Central America, the members of the CA-4 Treaty (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua) adopted a common-design passport, called the Central American passport. Although the design had been in use by Nicaragua and El Salvador since the mid-1990s, it became the norm for the CA-4 in January, 2006. The main features are the navy-blue cover with the words "América Central" and a map of Central America, and with the territory of the issuing country highlighted in gold. This substitutes one map for four national symbols. At the bottom of the cover are the name of the issuing country and the passport type. As of 2006, the Nicaraguan passport, which is the model for the passports of the three other countries, is issued in Spanish, French, and English.

The member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) recently began issuing passports to a common design, featuring the CARICOM symbol along with the national symbol and name of the member state, rendered in an CARICOM official language (English, French, Dutch). The member states which use the common design are Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The member states of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) had originally planned for a common OECS passport by January 1, 2003, but it was delayed. Plans to introduce a CARICOM common passport would have made the OECS passport redundant, since all full members of the OECS were also full members of CARICOM. Thus, by November, 2004, the OECS governments agreed to give CARICOM a deadline of May, 2005, to introduce a CARICOM passport, failure of which would have resulted in moving ahead with the introduction of the OECS Passport. The CARICOM passport was introduced in January, 2005, by Suriname, so the idea of an OECS passport was abandoned. Had the OECS passport been introduced, however, it would not have been issued to economic citizens within the OECS states.

Cover of an Argentinian passport

The declaration adopted in Cusco, Peru, establishing the Union of South American Nations, signalled an intention to establish a common passport design, but this appears to be a long way away. Already, some member states of regional sub-groupings such as Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations issue passports that bear their official names and seals, along with the name of their regional grouping. Examples include Paraguay and Ecuador.

The members of the Andean Community of Nations began, in 2001, the process of adopting a common passport format. Specifications for the common passport format were outlined in an Andean Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in 2002. The member states also agreed to phase in new Andean passports, bearing the official name of the regional body in Spanish (Comunidad Andina), by January, 2005. Previously-issued national passports will be valid until their expiry dates. The Andean passport is currently in use in Ecuador and Peru. Bolivia and Colombia were to start issuing Andean passports in early 2006. Andean passports are bordeaux (burgundy-red), with words in gold. Above the national seal of the issuing country is the name of the organization in Spanish, which is centred and is printed in a large font. Below the seal is the official name of the member country. At the bottom of the cover are the Spanish word for "passport" and the word "passport" in English. Venezuela left the Andean Community, so it is likely that the country will no longer issue Andean passports.

National status

Passports contain a statement of the nationality of the holder. A country with complex nationality laws could issue various passports which are similar in appearance but are representative of differing national statuses. Due to the British colonial heritage and contemporary laws, the United Kingdom has a number of classes of United Kingdom nationality, and more than one relationship of persons to the United Kingdom. The several classes and relationships cause foreign governments to subject this or that group of United Kingdom passport holders to one or another set of entry requirements.

A version of Tongan citizenship is available through investment. An investor is described in a Tongan passport as a Tongan protected person. The status does not carry with it the right of abode in Tonga. Many countries accept Tongan passports which reflect actual Tongan citizenship, but do not accept Tongan passports which reflect investment citizenship.

Passports dependent on citizenship and domicile are issued under the authority of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The one country, two systems model resulted in the PRC issuing passports, Hong Kong issuing passports, and Macau issuing passports. Foreign countries hinge visa-free travel, visa on arrival, and visas on whether a traveller bears a PRC passport, a Hong Kong passport, or a Macau passport, though, under the PRC nationality law, Chinese people who are domiciled in the PRC, Hong Kong, or Macau are all Chinese nationals.

Conditions on passport issuance

Pakistan

Pakistan requires a Muslim citizen who applies for a passport to subscribe to the following declaration:

1. I am a Muslim and believe in the absolute and unqualified finality of the Prophethood of Hazrat Muhammad the last of the Prophets.
2. I do not recognize any one who claims to be a prophet in any sense of the word or any description whatsoever, after Hazrat Muhammad or recognize such a claimant as a prophet or a religious reformer as Muslim.
3. I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani to be an impostor nabi and also consider his followers whether belonging to the Lahori, Qadiani or Mirzai groups, to be non-Muslims.

The declaration was instituted by the Islamist military regime of Zia-ul-Haq. The reason for the declaration is to prevent Qadianis from going to Mecca or Medina for Hajj or Umra. In the Pakistani biometric passport, there is no box for noting the religion of the passport holder. This seemingly made the religious subscription unnecessary. However, deletion of the box was reversed by the Pakistani government, in response to the religious parties. Passports have the religion box on page 3. Passports without the religion box have a rubber-stamp declaration of the passport holder's religion. There is no mention of religion on the Pakistani national ID Card.

Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

Citizenship of the Republic of Ireland is no longer given to all those born on the island of Ireland. A person who was born in Northern Ireland, which is a part of the United Kingdom, and who is entitled to claim Irish citizenship and apply for an Irish passport, is now subject to the same rules. That is, anyone born on the island of Ireland (i.e., in Northern Ireland or in the Republic of Ireland) before 2004 is entitled to Irish citizenship. People of Northern Ireland are entitled to United Kingdom nationality. As of 2005, Irish citizenship is not conferred on anyone born on the island of Ireland if he does not have at least one parent who is an Irish citizen or a UK citizen, or does not have one parent who was legally resident on the island of Ireland for at least three years prior to birth. Ireland and the UK agreed that a person born in Northern Ireland will not be considered an Irish citizen until he performs an act that can normally only be done by an Irish citizen, such as applying for an Irish passport. Claiming an Irish passport does not eliminate that person's United kingdom citizenship or his right to also hold a UK passport.

Irish citizenship can be claimed by grandchildren of Irish-born people, meaning approximately 5 million people in the UK can obtain Irish passports. In the Republic of Ireland, a significant number of people is entitled to UK passports through connections by descent or residence with the United Kingdom. Furthermore, those born before 1949 can also obtain UK passports as British subjects.

Passports as government property

Typical laws about passports declare that passports are government property, and may be limited or revoked at any time, usually on specified grounds. A limitation or a revocation is generally subject to judicial review.

Passports and bail

In many countries, law or judicial authority permits a court to make surrender of a passport a condition of granting bail.

One passport per person

Many countries issue only one passport to each national. When a passport is due to expire and a passport holder applies for another passport, he is required to hand over the passport in his possession for invalidation by the passport authority. Handing over and invalidating are prerequisite to issuance of another passport, unless the passport holder explains, to the satisfaction of the passport authority, why the passport presumptively in his possession cannot be handed over.

Some countries allow, under specified circumstances, the holding of more than one passport by a citizen. One circumstance is a disqualifying stamp in a passprt, such as a stamp which shows travel to Israel, and the citizen intends travel to an Arab country. Another circumstance is the need to travel while a visa is applied for, and it is likely that consideration of the visa application will be protracted.

Mandatory passport use

Under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative of the United States, each person is required to use a passport to enter or leave the US, unless he is permitted by regulations to use a document other than a passport. Those regulations have to be approved jointly by the Homeland Security Department and the State Department.

Limitations on passport use

Most often, a country accepts the passports of other countries as valid for international travel and valid for entry. There are exceptions, such as: A country does not recognise the passport-issuing country as a sovereign state. An issued passport does not represent the right of abode of the bearer in the country which issued the passport.

Brazil

Brazil does not accept passports issued by Hong Kong and passports issued by Macau. Travellers with those passports must apply for a Brazilian laissez-passer, which authorises a single entry into Brazil.

China and Taiwan

The People's Republic of China (PRC), on the mainland, does not recognise the Republic of China (ROC), on Taiwan, as a sovereign state. Rather, the PRC regards Taiwan as a part of its territory, although the PRC never had authority over Taiwan. The ROC, for its part, has not renounced its claim to mainland China, although the ROC has been on Taiwan since 1949, and has no authority over the mainland. Despite PRC and ROC immigration controls, neither considers travel between mainland China and Taiwan as international travel. Neither the PRC nor the ROC stamps passports issued by the other.

Citizens of the ROC use permits, issued by PRC public-security authorities, to enter mainland China. Permits are collected in Hong Kong or in Macau, whichever is the point of first arrival on the mainland from Taiwan. The ROC used to require its citizens who intended travel to mainland China to obtain official approval for the travel, and prescribed an administrative fine of NT$20,000 to NT$100,000 for those who did not. However, the fine was often unimposable, because the PRC did not stamp ROC passports. Thus, there was no way for the ROC to determine who should have been subjected to the fine, except if an ROC citizen lost his ROC passport while on the mainland, and, so, had to report the loss. The official-approval requirement was abolished, except in relation to ROC officials, of whom applications are required.

At a port of entry in Taiwan, there is a conspicuous facility where PRC citizens must surrender their passports and other travel documents. On the mainland, ROC citizens keep their identity documents issued by Taiwan.

Cyprus

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) issues passports, but only Turkey recognises its statehood. TRNC passports are not accepted for entry into the Republic of Cyprus. Until 2003, Turkey did not accept passports of Cyprus, because Cyprus did not recognize the TRNC. Presently, Turkey accepts Cypriot passports, but does not stamp them. Rather, Turkish immigration officials stamp a separate visa issued by Turkey.

The Republic of Cyprus refuses entry to holders of Yugoslav passports which bears a renewal stamp with "Macedonia".

Hong Kong and Macau

On the mainland, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and the Macau SAR are each empowered by its Basic Law to issue passports. A Hong Kong passport states that the holder is a Chinese national with the right of abode in Hong Kong. Similarly, a Macau passport states that the bearer is a Chinese national with the right of abode in Macau.

Hong Kong maintains border controls at all points of entry, as does Macau. Each of Hong Kong and Macau requires passports for entry and exit, even if a traveller bears a PRC passport, though the Hong Kong government and the Macau government are units of the PRC government, and though neither travel to or from Hong Kong and the mainland nor travel to or from Macau and the mainland is international travel.

The Public Security Bureau of Guangdong, the Chinese province adjacent to Hong Kong, issues a permit, dubbed the Home Return Permit, to Chinese people domiciled in Hong Kong who were PRC citizens before the 1997 handover, to allow them to enter and exit the PRC. A proposal that the Hong Kong passport should supplant this permit was dismissed.

Many Chinese people domiciled in Hong Kong hold British National (Overseas) passports issued under a programme instituted by the United Kingdom in the 1990s. The PRC, for its part, considers Chinese people domiciled in Hong Kong to be PRC citizens. The PRC does not recognise BNO passports, and does not recognise the attendant United Kingdom nationality, inasmuch as PRC law does not permit dual nationality. Chinese people domiciled in Hong Kong who have BNO passports use the Home Return Permit to enter the PRC.

A Chinese person domiciled in Hong Kong may not use a BNO passport or a Hong Kong passport in its own right for entering Taiwan, BNO passports must be used in conjunction with a special travel permit issued by the ROC. First-time travellers have to apply beforehand, but most other travellers can collect a permit on arrival, subject to certain restrictions.

In contrast, a British-citizen passport obtained in Hong Kong by a Chinese person domiciled in Hong Kong may be used in its own right to enter Taiwan.

A Chinese person domiciled in Hong Kong or in Macau, the passport held by him regardless, may travel to the other special administrative region on his ID card. Each traveller must complete an arrival/departure card. Holders of smart ID cards of Hong Kong or Macau may enter Hong Kong or Macau through an automatic channel after fingerprints are read and matched by a computer.

ROC citizens who travel to Hong Kong apply for entry permits and collect them at airline counters. Repeat travellers satisfying certain conditions may apply online.

Israel

The data page of an Israeli passport.

Some countries will not allow entry to people with evidence of travel to Israel, or whose passports have a used or an unused Israeli visa. Those countries are Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrein, Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia -- except with written permission from the Malaysian government, Maldives, Mauritius, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar -- though Israeli passport holders can transit the Doha airport, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

To circumvent the travel restrictions, Israel used to not require visitors to have their passports stamped with Israeli visas or with Israeli entry and exit stamps. The procedure made it impossible to tell if a traveller had been to Israel. Since September, 2006, Israeli immigration officials will rarely agree not to stamp passports.

The countries which do not allow entry to people with evidence of travel to Israel are aware of the entry and exit stamps stamped in passports by Egypt and Jordan at their respective land borders with Israel. Non-allowing countries prohibit entry based on the presence of a tell-tale Egyptian or Jordanian stamp. A traveller, for example, would be denied entry based on the presence of an Egyptian stamp, in his passport, which indicates that he crossed into or out of Egypt at Taba on the Egyptian-Israeli border.

South Korea

From the point of view of South Korea, travel from the section of the Korean peninsula under South Korean administration directly to the section of the Korean peninsula under North Korean administration is not international travel. Under the constitution of South Korea, the section of the Korean peninsula under North Korean administration is part of South Korea, but under a different administration.

Spain and Gibraltar

Spain does not accept United Kingdom passports issued in Gibraltar, on the ground that the government of Gibraltar is not a competent authority for issuing UK passports. Consequently, some Gibraltarans were refused entry to Spain. "Gibraltar" now appears beneath the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" on passport covers, which is the usual format for passports of British colonies and dependencies.

Tonga

Some countries decline to accept Tongan Protected Person passports, though they accept Tongan citizen passports. Tongan Protected Person passports are sold by the government of Tonga to anyone who is not a Tongan national. A holder of a Tongan Protected Person passport is forbidden to enter or settle in Tonga. Generally, those holders are refugees, stateless persons, and individuals who for politcal reasons do not have access to any other passport-issuing authority.

Travel without passports

• United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland: Citizens of the UK and Ireland do not require a passport to travel between those two countries. Other EEA nationals must show a national ID card or a passport. All other nationals require passports.
• The CA-4 countries: Citizens of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua do not require passports to travel between or among any of the four countries. A national ID card (cédula) is sufficient for entry. In addition, the CA-4 agreement implemented the Central American Single Visa (Visa Única Centroamericana).
• Nordic countries -- Denmark, including the Faroe Islands and Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden: The Nordic Passport Union joined the larger Schengen treaty region in 1997.
• Lebanon and Syria: Lebanese citizens entering Syria do not require passports to enter Syria, if carrying Lebanese ID cards. Similarly, Syrian citizens do not require passports to enter Lebanon, if carrying Syrian ID cards.
• India, Nepal, and Bhutan: Passports are not needed by citizens of those countries to travel within any of those countries, but some identification is required for border crossing.
• Croatia does not require passports of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who have B&H ID cards. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Slovenia, and Hungary do not require Croatian citizens to have a passport, only Croatian ID cards.
• Serbia does not require passports of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who have B&H ID cards. Bosnia and Herzegovina does not require Serbian citizens to have passports, only Serbian ID cards.
• Citizens of Serbia and citizens of Montenegro may travel between the two countries with national ID cards.
• Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania comprise the East African Community. Each country may issue, to an eligible citizen, an East African passport. Those passports are recognised by only the three countries, and are used for travel between or among those countries. The requirements for eligibility are less rigorous than are the requirements for national passports used for other international travel.
• The member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) do not require passports for their citizens traveling within the community. National ID cards are sufficient. The member states are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
• Russia and some former Soviet Union republics: The participating countries may require an internal passport, which is the equivalent of a national ID card, rather than a passport.
• Many South and Central american nationals can travel within their respective regional economic zones, such as Mercosur and the Andean Community of Nations, or on a bilateral basis (e.g., between Chile and Peru, between Brazil and Chile), without passports, presenting instead their national ID cards, or, for short stays, their voter-registration cards. This travel must be done overland rather than by air. There are plans to extend these rights to all of South America under a Union of South American Nations.
• Turkey does not require a passport for citizens of Greece who hold new ID cards. Those have the holder's details in both the Greek and the Latin alphabets.
• Citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries need only national ID cards (also referred to as civil ID cards) to cross the borders of council countries.
• Italy and Vatican City: Italy does not require passports for travel to Vatican City, and Vatican City does not require passports for travel to Italy. The only way to get to Vatican City is through Italy, so Italian immigration requirements are de facto those of Vatican City. The Vatican issues its own passports to officials of the Roman Catholic Church who reside in or near the Vatican, and who work there. Each Pope is always given Vatican Passport No. 1.

The 2003 Swiss passport is labeled in the country's four national languages and in English.

Citizens of the European Economic Area (the European Union plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) enjoy the freedom to travel and work in any European Union country without a visa, although transitory dispositions may restrict the rights of citizens of new member states to work in other countries. The same rights are also accorded to citizens of Switzerland, although they remain separate from the EEA.

European citizens travelling within the European Union may use standard compliant national ID cards rather than passports. Not all EU countries produced standard compliant national ID cards, and in other countries few people obtained one, which means that many persons need a passport anyway. The Swedish national identity card is valid only within the countries which fully implemented the Schengen Agreement, plus Switzerland.

Countries that have signed and applied the Schengen treaty (a subset of the EEA) do not implement passport controls between each other, unless exceptional circumstances apply. Most of the remaining EU countries, plus Switzerland, have signed the Schengen treaty, but have not applied it yet. The main reason is that, according to EU law, the member states which joined the EU in 2004 would have to meet strict criteria with respect to their efforts to protect EU external borders before intra-EU border controls between the old member states and new member states may be lifted. Switzerland requires some time to adapt its national databases to those of the EU.

As a consequence of the above, a French citizen, for example, may travel to the United Kingdom, another EEA nation, and then freely work in that country. However, since the UK has not signed the Schengen treaty, the French citizen will have to carry at least a national ID card, which will be checked at the border. On the other hand, if and when Switzerland applies the Schengen treaty, the French citizen will be able to travel to Switzerland without being stopped at the border, but he will not be able to work freely in that country without authorisation, because Switzerland is not a member of the EEA. This is true notwithstanding the fact that, in most cases, authorisation to work would nevertheless have to be granted by Swiss authorities according to a specific treaty on free movement which had been concluded between the EU and Switzerland.

Some European countries require all persons to carry or, at least, possess, an identity card or a passport. So while Switzerland will not check French travellers' passports at the border, they may have to show their national ID cards within the country, such as when required by police officers to do so.

Except at the border, ID cards are not required by UK law. There is, however, a de-facto requirement to prove one's identity to conduct business. A European has to show a European national ID card to open a UK bank account or to prove eligibility to work.

Refugees and stateless persons, who do not have access to passports, may be issued a travel document by the country in which they reside. Holders of those travel documents generally require visas for international travel, and are not be entitled to consular protection. Exceptions to this include persons holding 1951 Convention Documents, who could benefit from some visa-free travel under the convention, persons who reside in the Schengen area, and persons who reside in the Nordic Passport Union area. Holders of UK passports and Irish passports do not benefit from visa-free travel within the Common Travel Area.

Immigration stamps in passports

For immigaration control, immigration officials stamp passports with entry stamps and exit stamps. A stamp can serve different purposes. In the United Kingdom, an immigration stamp in a passport includes the formal leave to enter granted to a person subject to entry control. Otherwise, a stamp activates or acknowledges the continuing leave conferred in the passport bearer's entry clearance.

Under the Schengen system, a passport is stamped with a date stamp which does not indicate any duration of stay. This stamp is taken to mean either that the person is deemed to have permission to remain for three months or for the period shown on his visa.

Neither the UK nor a Schengen country is allowed to stamp the passport of a person not subject to immigration control, whether a citizen of that country or a national of another EU country. Stamping is prohibited, because a passport stamp is imposition of a control that the person is not subject to. This concept is not applicable in other countries, where a stamp in a passport simply acknowledges the entry or exit of a person.

Countries have different styles of stamps for entries and exits, to make it easy to identify the movements of persons. The colour of the ink may also provide information about movements. In Hong Kong, prior to and immediately after the 1997 transfer of sovereignty, entry and exit stamps were identical at all ports of entry, but colours differed. Airport stamps used black ink, land stamps used red ink, and sea stamps used purple ink. In Macau, under Portuguese administration, the same colour of ink was used for all stamps. The stamps had slightly-different borders to indicate entry and exit by air, land, or sea.

References

• Krueger, Stephen, Krueger on United States Passport Law. Hong Kong: Crossbow Corporation (2nd ed. 1999 & supps.).
• Lloyd, Martin, The Passport: The History of Man's Most Travelled Document. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing (2003) (ISBN 0-7509-2964-2).
• Salter, Mark B., Rights of Passage: The Passport in International Relations. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner (2003).
• Torpey, John, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship, and the State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2000).

See also

• Biometric passport
• Hajj passport
• Nansen passport

External links

• History of Canadian Passports
• History of UK Passports (UK Passport Service)
• History of Australian Passports
• History of Sri Lankan Passports
• Latvia passport information (Link to history at the bottom of page)
• United States passport information (U.S. Department of State)
• How Passports Work USA focused information from Howstuffworks
• ICAO MRTD Machine Readable Travel Documents
• The Optical Character Recognition standard, a free link
• Dateline NBC investigation into passport fraud
• Guidelines for Producing High Quality Photographs for U.S. Travel Documents U.S. Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs