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A passport is a document, issued by a national government,
which certifies, for the purpose of international travel,
the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of
identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth.
Most often, nationality and citizenship are congruent.
A passport does not of itself entitle the passport holder entry into another country, nor to consular protection while abroad or any other privileges, in the absence of any special agreements which cover the situation. It does, however, normally entitle the passport holder to return to the country which issued the passport. Rights to consular protection arise from international agreements, and the right to return arises from the laws of the issuing country. A passport does not represent the right or the place of residence of the passport holder in the country which issued the passport.
History
Inside of the old Polish passport - 1931
One of the earliest known reference to what served the major role of a passport is found in the Hebrew Bible. In Nehemiah 2:7-9, attributed to the time of the Persian Empire in about 450 BC, it is said that Nehemiah, an official serving King Artaxerxes I of Persia, asked leave to travel to Judea, and the king granted leave and gave him a letter "to the governors beyond the river" requesting safe passage for him as he traveled through their lands.
In the medieval Islamic Caliphate, a form of passport was used in the form of a bara'a, a receipt for taxes paid. Only citizens who paid their zakah (for Muslims) or jizya (for Dhimmis) taxes were permitted to travel to different regions of the Caliphate, thus the bara'a receipt was a "traveller's basic passport."
It is considered unlikely that the term "passport" is derived from sea ports, but rather from a medieval document required to pass through the gate ("porte") of a city wall. In medieval Europe, such documents were issued to travelers by local authorities, and 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.
King Henry V of England is credited with having invented what some consider the first true passport, notwithstanding the earlier examples cited, as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands.
Early passports included a description of the passport holder. Attachment of photographs to passports began in the early decades of the twentieth century, when photography became widespread.
In the later 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-nineteenth century onward, traveled rapidly, carried numerous passengers, and crossed many borders. Those factors made enforcement of passport laws difficult. The general reaction was abolition of passport requirements. The Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire maintained passport requirements for international travel, in addition to an internal-passport system to control travel within their borders.
During World War I, European governments introduced border passport requirements for security reasons (to keep out spies) and to control emigration of citizens with useful skills, retaining potential manpower. These controls remained in place after the war, and became standard procedure, though not without controversy. British tourists of the 1920s complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions, which they considered 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 (ICAO).
Types
Inside front cover and first page of an ordinary Azerbaijani passport
The terminology related to passports has become generally standardized around the world. The typical passports include:
Ordinary passport, also called tourist passport
Issued to ordinary citizens.
Official passport, also called service passport
Issued to government employees for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependents.
Diplomatic passport
Issued to diplomats and consuls for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependents. 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.
In exceptional circumstances, 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.
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.
Collective passport
Issued to defined groups for travel together to particular destinations, such as a group of school children on a school trip to a specified country.
Family passport
Issued to family members -- father, mother, son, daughter. There is one passport holder. He or she may travel alone, or with another family member, or with other family members. A family member who is not the passport holder can only travel with the passport holder.
Laissez-passer
A document which is not a passport, but which serves the function of a passport. Laissez-passer are issued by international organizations to their officers and employees for official travel.
Alien's passport
A document which is not a passport, but is a document issued under certain circumstances, such as statelessness, to non-citizen residents.
In Latvia, an alien's passport is a passport for non-citizens - former citizens of the Soviet Union who reside in Latvia, but are not entitled to citizenship. It is used as an internal passport inside Latvia, and as a travel document outside Latvia.
Internal passport
A document which is not a passport, but is an identity document which keeps track of migration within a country. Examples: the internal passport of Russia, or the hukou residence-registration system in mainland China, both dating back to imperial times.
Camouflage and Fantasy Passports
A Camouflage passport is a document that appears to be a regular passport but is actually in the name of a country that no longer exists or never existed. Companies that sell camouflage passports make the rather dubious claim that in the event of a hijacking they could be shown to terrorists to aid escape. There is no known instance of this happening. Because a camouflage passport is not issued in the name of a real country, it is not a counterfeit and is not illegal per se to have. However attempting to use it to actually enter a country would be illegal in most jurisdictions.
A fantasy passport is likewise a document not issued by a recognized government and invalid for legitimate travel. Fantasy passports are distinguished from camouflage passports in that they are issued by an actual, existent group, organization, or tribe. In some cases the goal of the fantasy passport is to make a political statement or to denote membership in the organization. In other cases they are issued more or less as a joke or for souvenir purposes.
International Civil Aviation Organization Standards
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issues passport standards which are treated as recommendations to national governments.
The standard passport format includes the name of the issuing country on a passport cover, a national symbol, a description of the document (e.g., 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. Passports have numerical or alphanumerical designators ("serial number") assigned by the issuing authority.
Standards for machine-readable passports have also been issued by the ICAO, with an area set aside where most of the information written as text is also printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition.
To conform with ICAO standards, a biometric passport has an embedded contactless smart card, which contains data about the passport holder, a photograph in digital format, and data about the passport itself. Many countries now issue biometric passports. The objectives for the biometric passports are to speed up clearance through immigration and the 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, usually near the front of a passport, requesting 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. The message is sometimes made in the name of the government or the head of state, notionally by the foreign minister or another representative of the government. The message may be written in more than one language, depending on the language policies of the issuing authority. For example, the English passport message in a Philippine passport is
The Government of the Republic of the Philippines requests all concerned authorities to permit the bearer, a citizen of the Philippines, to pass safely and freely and in case of need to give him/her all lawful aid and protection.
Other examples: United Kingdom; United States. However, such a message is not always present, for instance not in Norwegian passports[citation needed].
Languages
EU-languages pages of a French passport
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.
Some unusual language combinations are:
* 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 numbers which refer to the passport pages on which translations into all the remaining languages appear (illustration—right).
* A Bangladesh passport is printed in the national language Bengali (Bangla), English and in French.
* Barbadian passports are 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.
* Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passports are in Traditional Chinese and English.
* The face page of the older, pre- EU- version of the 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 later on also added.
* Indian passports are in Hindi and English.
* 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 passports of some other Arab countries.
* Macao Special Administrative Region passports are in Traditional Chinese, Portuguese and English.
* Mexican passports are in Spanish, English and French.
* Montenegrin passports are in Montenegrin, English and French
* New Zealand passports are in English and Maori.
* Pakistani passports are in Urdu, English, Arabic and French.
* Swiss passports are in five languages: German, French, Italian, Rumansch and English.[citation needed]
* 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.
Common designs
An Argentine passport with the name of Mercosur in the top.
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 biometric 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, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The member states of the Organisation 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.
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 history 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 holders of different UK passports to different 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.
The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) authorizes by law its Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau) to issue passports on their own to their respective residents under the one country, two systems arrangement. Visa policies imposed by foreign authorities on Hong Kong and Macau residents holding such passports are different from those holding ordinary passports of the People's Republic of China, though it should be noted that all are considered Chinese nationals (i.e. possessing the same Chinese nationality status) under the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China.
National conditions on passport issuance
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 Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The reason for the declaration is to prevent Qadianis from going to Mecca or Medina for Hajj or Umrah. 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. However religion is not mentioned on the Pakistani CNIC (Computerised National Identity Card).
In Finland male citizens aged 18–30 years have to prove that they have completed the obligatory military service when applying for a passport. If they haven't yet completed the service, the passport is only issued until the end of their 27th year in order to ensure that they won't flee the country.[citation needed]
Passports as government property
Most countries declare by law that passports are government property (perhaps even counterfeit ones), 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, courts are authorized, by a law or by judicial authority, 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 passport holders apply for a new passport (commonly, due to expiration of an old passport or lack of blank pages), they may be required to surrender the old passport for invalidation. In some circumstances an expired passport is not required to be surrendered or invalidated (for example, if it contains an unexpired visa).
Some countries allow, under specified circumstances, the holding of more than one passport by a citizen. One circumstance is a disqualifying stamp in a passport, such as a stamp which shows travel to Israel, and the citizen intends travel to a country which does not recognize Israel. Another circumstance is frequent international travel including to countries with protracted visa application process. Awaiting a visa for a particular county, a person with two passports may travel to other countries with the second passport.
Family Passports
At one time it was common for a parent's passport to include the names and photos of his or her children. These "family passports" allowed children to travel together with their parents without the need to issue individual passports to each child. Family passports were not valid for children to travel by themselves or with someone other than a parent. The United States and Great Britain once issued family passports, but no longer do so, whereas some countries, such as France, still do. A Uruguayan passport still has two photo pages, on which there can be a listing of up to six children, each with his thumbprint and details.
In recent years concerns over international child abduction, including abduction by a parent, have led some countries to require both parents to sign a passport application. In the United States, a person aged 16 years or older can apply for a passport themselves. Applications by those aged 15 and under require the signatures of both parents or a statement, signed under penalty of perjury, as to why only one parent is physically capable of signing the application.
Limitations on passport use
A Taiwan Compatriot Entry Permit, issued by the PRC for Taiwan residents travelling to mainland China.
Most countries accept passports of other countries as valid for international travel and valid for entry. There are exceptions, such as when a country does not recognise the passport-issuing country as a sovereign state. Likewise, the passport-issuing country may also stamp restrictions on the passports of its citizens not to go to certain countries due to poor or non-existent foreign relations, or security or health risks.
A passport does not of itself entitle the passport holder entry into another country, nor to consular protection while abroad or any other privileges, in the absence of any special agreements which cover the situation. It does, however, normally entitle the passport holder to return to the country which issued the passport. Rights to consular protection arise from international agreements, and the right to return arises from the laws of the issuing country. A passport does not represent the right or the place of residence of the passport holder in the country which issued the passport.
History
Inside of the old Polish passport - 1931
One of the earliest known reference to what served the major role of a passport is found in the Hebrew Bible. In Nehemiah 2:7-9, attributed to the time of the Persian Empire in about 450 BC, it is said that Nehemiah, an official serving King Artaxerxes I of Persia, asked leave to travel to Judea, and the king granted leave and gave him a letter "to the governors beyond the river" requesting safe passage for him as he traveled through their lands.
In the medieval Islamic Caliphate, a form of passport was used in the form of a bara'a, a receipt for taxes paid. Only citizens who paid their zakah (for Muslims) or jizya (for Dhimmis) taxes were permitted to travel to different regions of the Caliphate, thus the bara'a receipt was a "traveller's basic passport."
It is considered unlikely that the term "passport" is derived from sea ports, but rather from a medieval document required to pass through the gate ("porte") of a city wall. In medieval Europe, such documents were issued to travelers by local authorities, and 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.
King Henry V of England is credited with having invented what some consider the first true passport, notwithstanding the earlier examples cited, as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands.
Early passports included a description of the passport holder. Attachment of photographs to passports began in the early decades of the twentieth century, when photography became widespread.
In the later 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-nineteenth century onward, traveled rapidly, carried numerous passengers, and crossed many borders. Those factors made enforcement of passport laws difficult. The general reaction was abolition of passport requirements. The Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire maintained passport requirements for international travel, in addition to an internal-passport system to control travel within their borders.
During World War I, European governments introduced border passport requirements for security reasons (to keep out spies) and to control emigration of citizens with useful skills, retaining potential manpower. These controls remained in place after the war, and became standard procedure, though not without controversy. British tourists of the 1920s complained, especially about attached photographs and physical descriptions, which they considered 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 (ICAO).
Types
Inside front cover and first page of an ordinary Azerbaijani passport
The terminology related to passports has become generally standardized around the world. The typical passports include:
Ordinary passport, also called tourist passport
Issued to ordinary citizens.
Official passport, also called service passport
Issued to government employees for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependents.
Diplomatic passport
Issued to diplomats and consuls for work-related travel, and to accompanying dependents. 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.
In exceptional circumstances, 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.
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.
Collective passport
Issued to defined groups for travel together to particular destinations, such as a group of school children on a school trip to a specified country.
Family passport
Issued to family members -- father, mother, son, daughter. There is one passport holder. He or she may travel alone, or with another family member, or with other family members. A family member who is not the passport holder can only travel with the passport holder.
Laissez-passer
A document which is not a passport, but which serves the function of a passport. Laissez-passer are issued by international organizations to their officers and employees for official travel.
Alien's passport
A document which is not a passport, but is a document issued under certain circumstances, such as statelessness, to non-citizen residents.
In Latvia, an alien's passport is a passport for non-citizens - former citizens of the Soviet Union who reside in Latvia, but are not entitled to citizenship. It is used as an internal passport inside Latvia, and as a travel document outside Latvia.
Internal passport
A document which is not a passport, but is an identity document which keeps track of migration within a country. Examples: the internal passport of Russia, or the hukou residence-registration system in mainland China, both dating back to imperial times.
Camouflage and Fantasy Passports
A Camouflage passport is a document that appears to be a regular passport but is actually in the name of a country that no longer exists or never existed. Companies that sell camouflage passports make the rather dubious claim that in the event of a hijacking they could be shown to terrorists to aid escape. There is no known instance of this happening. Because a camouflage passport is not issued in the name of a real country, it is not a counterfeit and is not illegal per se to have. However attempting to use it to actually enter a country would be illegal in most jurisdictions.
A fantasy passport is likewise a document not issued by a recognized government and invalid for legitimate travel. Fantasy passports are distinguished from camouflage passports in that they are issued by an actual, existent group, organization, or tribe. In some cases the goal of the fantasy passport is to make a political statement or to denote membership in the organization. In other cases they are issued more or less as a joke or for souvenir purposes.
International Civil Aviation Organization Standards
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issues passport standards which are treated as recommendations to national governments.
The standard passport format includes the name of the issuing country on a passport cover, a national symbol, a description of the document (e.g., 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. Passports have numerical or alphanumerical designators ("serial number") assigned by the issuing authority.
Standards for machine-readable passports have also been issued by the ICAO, with an area set aside where most of the information written as text is also printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition.
To conform with ICAO standards, a biometric passport has an embedded contactless smart card, which contains data about the passport holder, a photograph in digital format, and data about the passport itself. Many countries now issue biometric passports. The objectives for the biometric passports are to speed up clearance through immigration and the 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, usually near the front of a passport, requesting 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. The message is sometimes made in the name of the government or the head of state, notionally by the foreign minister or another representative of the government. The message may be written in more than one language, depending on the language policies of the issuing authority. For example, the English passport message in a Philippine passport is
The Government of the Republic of the Philippines requests all concerned authorities to permit the bearer, a citizen of the Philippines, to pass safely and freely and in case of need to give him/her all lawful aid and protection.
Other examples: United Kingdom; United States. However, such a message is not always present, for instance not in Norwegian passports[citation needed].
Languages
EU-languages pages of a French passport
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.
Some unusual language combinations are:
* 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 numbers which refer to the passport pages on which translations into all the remaining languages appear (illustration—right).
* A Bangladesh passport is printed in the national language Bengali (Bangla), English and in French.
* Barbadian passports are 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.
* Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passports are in Traditional Chinese and English.
* The face page of the older, pre- EU- version of the 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 later on also added.
* Indian passports are in Hindi and English.
* 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 passports of some other Arab countries.
* Macao Special Administrative Region passports are in Traditional Chinese, Portuguese and English.
* Mexican passports are in Spanish, English and French.
* Montenegrin passports are in Montenegrin, English and French
* New Zealand passports are in English and Maori.
* Pakistani passports are in Urdu, English, Arabic and French.
* Swiss passports are in five languages: German, French, Italian, Rumansch and English.[citation needed]
* 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.
Common designs
An Argentine passport with the name of Mercosur in the top.
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 biometric 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, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
The member states of the Organisation 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.
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 history 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 holders of different UK passports to different 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.
The Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) authorizes by law its Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau) to issue passports on their own to their respective residents under the one country, two systems arrangement. Visa policies imposed by foreign authorities on Hong Kong and Macau residents holding such passports are different from those holding ordinary passports of the People's Republic of China, though it should be noted that all are considered Chinese nationals (i.e. possessing the same Chinese nationality status) under the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China.
National conditions on passport issuance
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 Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The reason for the declaration is to prevent Qadianis from going to Mecca or Medina for Hajj or Umrah. 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. However religion is not mentioned on the Pakistani CNIC (Computerised National Identity Card).
In Finland male citizens aged 18–30 years have to prove that they have completed the obligatory military service when applying for a passport. If they haven't yet completed the service, the passport is only issued until the end of their 27th year in order to ensure that they won't flee the country.[citation needed]
Passports as government property
Most countries declare by law that passports are government property (perhaps even counterfeit ones), 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, courts are authorized, by a law or by judicial authority, 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 passport holders apply for a new passport (commonly, due to expiration of an old passport or lack of blank pages), they may be required to surrender the old passport for invalidation. In some circumstances an expired passport is not required to be surrendered or invalidated (for example, if it contains an unexpired visa).
Some countries allow, under specified circumstances, the holding of more than one passport by a citizen. One circumstance is a disqualifying stamp in a passport, such as a stamp which shows travel to Israel, and the citizen intends travel to a country which does not recognize Israel. Another circumstance is frequent international travel including to countries with protracted visa application process. Awaiting a visa for a particular county, a person with two passports may travel to other countries with the second passport.
Family Passports
At one time it was common for a parent's passport to include the names and photos of his or her children. These "family passports" allowed children to travel together with their parents without the need to issue individual passports to each child. Family passports were not valid for children to travel by themselves or with someone other than a parent. The United States and Great Britain once issued family passports, but no longer do so, whereas some countries, such as France, still do. A Uruguayan passport still has two photo pages, on which there can be a listing of up to six children, each with his thumbprint and details.
In recent years concerns over international child abduction, including abduction by a parent, have led some countries to require both parents to sign a passport application. In the United States, a person aged 16 years or older can apply for a passport themselves. Applications by those aged 15 and under require the signatures of both parents or a statement, signed under penalty of perjury, as to why only one parent is physically capable of signing the application.
Limitations on passport use
A Taiwan Compatriot Entry Permit, issued by the PRC for Taiwan residents travelling to mainland China.
Most countries accept passports of other countries as valid for international travel and valid for entry. There are exceptions, such as when a country does not recognise the passport-issuing country as a sovereign state. Likewise, the passport-issuing country may also stamp restrictions on the passports of its citizens not to go to certain countries due to poor or non-existent foreign relations, or security or health risks.
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