A travel document is an identity document issued by a government or international organization to enable individuals to travel across international borders. Travel documents usually assure other governments that the bearer may return to the issuing country, and are often issued in booklet form to allow other governments to place visas as well as entry and exit stamps into them.
The most common travel document is a passport, which usually gives the bearer privileges like visa-free access to certain countries. While national passports are the most common variety of travel document, many states and international organisations issue other varieties of travel documents that allow the holder to travel internationally. For example, stateless persons are not normally issued a national passport, but may be able to obtain a travel document for stateless persons; similarly, refugees may be issued a refugee travel document by its host country, which enables them to travel to countries which recognise the document.
Border control policies typically require travellers to present valid travel documents in order to ascertain their identity, nationality or permanent residence status, and eligibility to enter a given jurisdiction. The most common form of travel document is the passport, a booklet-form identity document issued by national authorities or the governments of certain subnational territories containing an individual's personal information as well as space for the authorities of other jurisdictions to affix stamps, visas, or other permits authorising the bearer to enter, reside, or travel within their territory. Certain jurisdictions permit individuals to clear border controls using identity cards, which typically contain similar personal information.
Different countries impose varying travel document regulations and requirements as part of their border control policies and these may vary based on the traveller's mode of transport. For instance, whilst America does not subject passengers departing by land or most boats to any border control, it does require that passengers departing by air hold a valid passport (or certain specific passport-replacing documents). Consequently, even though travellers departing America by air might not be required to have a passport to enter a certain country, they will be required to have a valid passport booklet to board their flight in order to satisfy American immigration authorities at departure. Similarly, although several countries outside the European Economic Area accept national identity cards issued by its member states for entry, Sweden and Finland do not permit their citizens to depart for countries outside the EEA using solely their identity cards.Ökade möjligheter att resa inom EU med nationellt identitetskort (Swedish)
Many countries normally allow entry to holders of passports of other countries, sometimes requiring a visa also to be obtained, but this is not an automatic right. Many other additional conditions may apply, such as not being likely to become a public charge for financial or other reasons, and the holder not having been convicted of a crime. Where a country does not recognise another, or is in dispute with it, it may prohibit the use of their passport for travel to that other country, or may prohibit entry to holders of that other country's passports, and sometimes to others who have, for example, visited the other country. Some individuals are subject to sanctions which deny them entry into particular countries.
Travel documents may be requested in other circumstances to confirm identification such as checking into a hotel or when changing money to a local currency. Passports and other travel documents have an expiry date, after which it is no longer recognised, but it is recommended that a passport is valid for at least six months as many airlines deny boarding to passengers whose passport has a shorter expiry date, even if the destination country may not have such a requirement.
Specifications Format
Travel documents are typically issued in one of two formats: Booklets: the most common format for travel documents containing one or two pages with the individual information and endorsements from the issuing government as well as a number of additional pages for passport stamps or visas to be affixed Identity cards: a card-sized document containing an individual's identifying information
The ICAO (ICAO) issues standards for both booklet and identity card-format travel documents which are treated as recommendations to national governments. The size of booklet-form travel documents normally complies with the ISO/IEC 7810 ID-3 standard, which specifies a size of . This size is the B7 format. Cards are issued to the ID-1 (credit card sized) standard. A standard booklet format travel document includes the cover, which contains the name of the issuing country, a national symbol, a description of the document (e.g., laissez-passer, passport, diplomatic passport), and a biometric symbol, if applicable. Inside, there is a title page, also naming the country. A data page follows, containing information about the bearer and the issuing authority. There are blank pages for visas, and to stamp for entries and exit. Passports have numerical or alphanumerical designators ("serial number") assigned by the issuing authority. Machine-readable standards for travel documents have 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. Biometric booklets and cards (or e-passports) have an embedded contactless chip in order to conform to ICAO standards. These chips contain data about the passport bearer, a photographic portrait in digital format, and data about the passport itself. Many countries now issue biometric passports, in order to speed up clearance through immigration and the prevention of identity fraud. These reasons are disputed by privacy advocates.
Immigration stamps
For immigration control, officials of many countries affix entry and exit stamps to booklet format travel documents. Depending on the country, a stamp can serve different purposes. For example, in the United Kingdom, an immigration stamp in a passport includes the formal leave to enter granted to a person subject to entry control. In other countries, a stamp activates or acknowledges the continuing leave conferred in the passport bearer's entry clearance. Under the Schengen system, a foreign travel document is stamped with a date stamp which does not indicate any duration of stay, indicating that the person is deemed to have permission to remain either for three months or for the period shown on his visa if specified otherwise. Member states of the European Union are not permitted to place a stamp in the passport of a person who is not subject to immigration control. Stamping is prohibited because it is an imposition of a control that the person is not subject to. Some travellers "collect" immigration stamps in their travel documents, and will choose to enter or exit countries via different means (for example, land, sea or air) in order to have different categories of stamps. Some countries, such as Liechtenstein, that do not stamp passports may provide a passport stamp on request for such "memory" purposes. Monaco (at its tourist office) and Andorra (at its border) do this as well. These are official stamps issued by government offices.
Passports
In general, a passport is a travel document that also serves as proof of nationality from the issuing country. Although generally accepted by the majority of countries in the world, some issuing countries expressly exclude the validity of passports from nations that are not recognised by their governments.
Governments around the world issue a variety of passports for different purposes. The most common variety are ordinary passports issued to individual citizens and other nationals. In the past, certain countries issued collective passports or family passport. Family passports were typically issued to one passport holder, who may travel alone or with other family members included in the passport. A family member not listed as the passport holder could not use the passport for travel without the passport holder. These passports are essentially obsolete as most countries; including all the EU states, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom; require each traveller to have their own passport. Today, passports are typically issued to individual travellers rather than groups. Aside from ordinary passports issued to citizens by national governments, there are a variety of other types of passports by governments in specific circumstances.
Laissez-passers
A laissez-passer (; ) is a travel document issued by a national government or certain international organisations. A laissez-passer is often for one-way travel to the issuing country for humanitarian reasons only such as Restoring Family Links. Some national governments issue laissez-passers to their own nationals as emergency passports. Others issue them to people who are stateless, or who are unable to obtain a passport from their own government, or whose government is not recognised by the issuing country. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they were issued by French consulates to people who would otherwise be unable to enter the country due to travel restrictions, but were allowed to enter for a single trip on compassionate grounds.
Historically, laissez-passers were commonly issued during wartime and at other periods, literally acting as a pass to allow travel to specific areas, or out of war zones or countries for various officials, diplomatic agents, other representatives or citizens of third countries. In these contexts, a laissez-passer would frequently include quite specific and limited freedom of movement. The form and issuing authority would be more or less standardized, depending on the circumstances. For example, during the early 1950s, the Iraqi government granted permission to its 120,000 Jewish citizens to leave (Operation Ezra and Nehemiah), conditional on their renouncing their citizenship and leaving behind all their properties and assets. The travel document that was issued was the laissez-passer, since an Iraqi passport was no longer possible.
The most common laissez-passer is the United Nations laissez-passer (UNLP) issued by the United Nations under the provisions of Article VII of the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations in its offices in New York and Geneva, as well as by the ILO. The UNLP is issued to UN and ILO staff as well as staff members of international organisations such as the WHO, the IAEA, the World Tourism Organization, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation Preparatory Commission, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Bank. The document is written in English and French, two of the six working languages of the United Nations. The UNLP is a valid travel document, which can be used like a national passport (in connection with travel on official missions only). However, UNLP holders often encounter immigration officials who are unfamiliar with the document and require them to show a national passport in addition. As with national passports, some countries and regions accept it for entry without the need for a visa (e.g., Turkmenistan, Kenya, the United Kingdom, Schengen Area, Lebanon, etc.), while other countries may require a visa before accepting it for entry (depending on the nationality of the UNLP holder).