United States passports are passports issued to citizens and non-citizen nationals of the United States of America.22 U.S.C. sec. 212; Passports. They are issued exclusively by the U.S. Department of State.22 U.S.C. sec. 211a; Passports Besides passports (in booklet form), limited-use passport cards are issued subject to the same requirements."Passport Card" . U.S. Department of State. It is unlawful for US citizens and nationals to enter or exit the country without a valid US passport or passport-replacement document compliant with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative,§ 215 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (currently codified at ) though there are many exceptions; waivers are generally granted for U.S. citizens returning without a passport, and the exit requirement is not enforced. As of 2026, a United States passport allows visa-free travel to 179 countries and territories, being ranked as the tenth most powerful in the world in terms of travel freedom per the Henley Passport Index.
U.S. passport booklets conform with recommended standards (i.e. size, composition, layout, technology) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).International Civil Aviation Organization, Doc 9303, Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part 1: Machine Readable Passport, Volume 1, Passports with Machine Readable Data Stored in Optical Character Recognition Format, Part 1, Machine Readable Passport (6th ed. 2006), Volume 2: Specifications for Electronically Enabled Passports with Biometric Identification Capabilities (6th ed. 2006). There are five types of passport booklets; the State Department has issued only biometric passports since August 2007."The U.S. Electronic Passport" . Bureau of Consular Affairs, U.S. Department of State. US passports are federal property and must be returned upon demand.
By law, a valid unexpired U.S. passport (or passport card) is conclusive (and not just prima facie) proof of U.S. citizenship, with the same force and effect as proof as certificates of naturalization or citizenship if issued to a U.S. citizen for the full period allowed by law. section "The Card Format Passport" U.S. law does not prohibit its citizens from also holding passports of other countries.
History
Early passports American consular officials issued passports to some citizens of some of the thirteen states during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Passports were sheets of paper printed on one side, included a description of the bearer, and were valid for three to six months. The minister to France, Benjamin Franklin, based the design of passports issued by his mission on that of the French passport.
From 1776 to 1783, no state government had a passport requirement. The Articles of Confederation government (1783–1789) did not have a passport requirement.
The Department of Foreign Affairs of the war period also issued passports, and the department, carried over by the Articles of Confederation government (1783–1789), continued to issue passports. In July 1789, the Department of Foreign Affairs was carried over by the government established under the Constitution. In September of that year, the name of the department was changed to Department of State. The department handled foreign relations and issued passports, and until the mid-19th century had various domestic duties.
For decades thereafter, passports were issued not only by the Department of State but also by states and cities, and by notaries public. For example, an internal passport dated 1815 was presented to Massachusetts citizen George Barker to allow him to travel as a free black man to visit relatives in Southern slave states. Passports issued by American authorities other than the Department of State breached propriety and caused confusion abroad. Some European countries refused to recognize passports not issued by the Department of State, unless United States consular officials endorsed them. The problems led the Congress in 1856 to give the Department of State the sole authority to issue passports.
From 1789 through late 1941, the federal government required passports of citizens only during two periods: during the American Civil War (1861–1865), as well as during and shortly after World War I (1914–1918). The passport requirement of the Civil War era lacked statutory authority. During World War I (1914–1918), European countries instituted passport requirements. The Travel Control Act of May 22, 1918, permitted the president, when the United States was at war, to proclaim a passport requirement, and President Wilson issued such a proclamation on August 18, 1918. World War I ended on November 11, 1918, but the passport requirement lingered until March 3, 1921, the last day of the Wilson administration.Act of May 22, 1918, ; Proc. No. 1473, ; Act of March 3, 1921, .
In Europe, general peace between the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) and the beginning of World War I (1914), and the development of railroads, gave rise to international travel by large numbers of people. Countries such as the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire maintained passport requirements. After World War I, many European countries retained their passport requirements. Foreign passport requirements undercut the absence of a passport requirement under US law for Americans exiting the country between 1921 and 1941.
Contemporary passports The contemporary period of required passports for Americans under United States law began on November 29, 1941.Act of June 21, 1941, ch. 210, ; Proc. No. 2523, ; 6 Fed. Reg. 6069 (1941). A 1978 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 made it unlawful to enter or depart the United States without an issued passport even in peacetime.Haig v. Agee, 453 U.S. 280 (1981). § 707(b) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 1979 (), amended § 215 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 making it unlawful to enter or depart the United States without a passport even in peacetime "except as otherwise provided by the President and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe".
Even when passports were not usually required, Americans requested them. Records of the Department of State show that 130,360 passports were issued between 1810 and 1873 and that 369,844 passports were issued between 1877 and 1909. Some of those passports were family passports or group passports. A passport application could cover, variously, a wife, a child, or children, one or more servants, or a woman traveling under the protection of a man. The passport would be issued to the man. Similarly, a passport application could cover a child traveling with their mother. The passport would be issued to the mother. The number of Americans who traveled without passports is unknown.
The League of Nations held a conference in 1920 concerning passports and through-train travel, and conferences in 1926 and 1927 concerning passports. The 1920 conference put forward guidelines on the layout and features of passports, which the 1926 and 1927 conferences followed up. Those guidelines were steps in the shaping of contemporary passports. One of the guidelines was about 32-page passport booklets, such as the U.S. type III mentioned in this section, below. Another guideline was about languages in passports. A conference on travel and tourism held by the United Nations in 1963 did not result in standardized passports. Passport standardization was accomplished in 1980 under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The design and contents of U.S. passports has changed over the years. Prior to World War I the passport was typically a large () diploma, with a large engraved seal of the Department of State at the top, repeated in red wax at the bottom, the bearer's description and signature on the left, and his name on the right above space for data such as "accompanied by his wife," all in ornate script. In 1926, the Department of State introduced the type III passport. This had a stiff red cover, with a window cut-out through which the passport number was visible. That style of passport contained 32 pages.
Initially, a U.S. passport was issued for two years, although by the 1950s on application by the holder a passport could be stamped so that this time was extended without reissue. Stamping for a further extension is not permitted at present. In the succeeding decades the periods of validity for adult applicants were gradually extended to three, five, and eventually ten years, the current standard.
Machine-readable passports In 1981, the United States became the first country to introduce machine-readable passports (MRPs), following standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). These passports featured an identity page with data encoded in an optical character recognition format to speed up processing and deter fraud.
As of 2010, all previous series have expired.
2000 update On November 16, 1998, the Department of State introduced a major technology shift by issuing the first passports with digitized photos. Instead of gluing a physical photograph to the page, the image was printed directly onto the data page using computer-generated imaging to prevent "photo-substitution."
In 2000, passports with digital photos started to be issued, where the photograph was printed directly onto the page rather than being glued or laminated.
This was the final machine-readable U.S. passport with a non-biometric design; it continued to be issued until 2006–2007, when it was replaced by the first biometric U.S. passport edition. All U.S. passports issued after which, with the exception of few categories such as emergency passports, have been designed as e-passports.
Biometric passports The legal driving force behind biometric passports is the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002, which states that smart-card identity cards may be used in lieu of visas. That law also provides that foreigners who travel to the U.S., and want to enter the U.S. visa-free under the Visa Waiver Program, must bear machine-readable passports that comply with international standards. If a foreign passport was issued on or after October 26, 2006, that passport must be a biometric passport.
The electronic chip in the back cover of a U.S. passport stores an image of the photograph of the passport holder, passport data, and personal data of the passport holder; and has capacity to store additional data. The capacity of the radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip is 64 kilobytes, which is large enough to store additional biometric identifiers in the future, such as fingerprints and iris scans. Data within the chip is signed with an RSA-2048 certificate issued to the U.S. Department of State by the ICAO Public Key Directory. Any and all data must be authentic and untampered, or else the signature will be invalidated.
Data in a passport chip is scannable by electronic readers, a capability which is intended to speed up immigration processing. This data, along with the signature, is verified to either be valid or invalid. Like toll-road chips, data in passport chips can be read when passport chips are adjacent to readers. The passport cover contains a radio-frequency shield in the form of a wire mesh within the cover, so the cover must be opened for the data to be read. This cover acts as a Faraday cage.
According to the Department of State, the Basic Access Control (BAC) security protocol prevents access to that data unless the printed information within the passport is also known or can be guessed.