News about passport's rules and regulations

To fly on private jets, for checking-in into a hotel or as a guarantee for currency exchange procedures, passport is the most used, powerful and important document.

It is the travel document that officialize the identity and the nationality of its owner, primarily for the purpose of traveling either within the same nation or to foreign countries. Usually, passports may include information such as the holder's photograph, nationality, name, place and date of birth, eye color, height, signature, fingerprints, family information, and other details.

As of 2017, there are over 120 government administrations around the world, issuing these new electronic passports that include biometric information in a microchip insert in the passport, making them readable by machines and difficult to be fraudulently imitated.

A passport possessor is normally authorized to enter the country that issued the passport, nevertheless some people entitled to a passport may not be full citizens with the right of abode. A passport does not get any rights in the country being visited or obligate the issue country in any way towards the holder, such as providing consular assistance.

Many countries normally allow the entry to other countries’ passport owners, sometimes requiring an entry visa that must be obtained either before the journey or at the moment of immigrations checks at arrival, but this is not an automatic right.

Often, the visa is a stamp with the date of entry and the name of the country on one of the pages, or can be a printed sticker, glued to the document that must be obtained before the trip. Some visas states also how many times the passport holder is entitled to enter in the territory, or define an “entry permission time frame”, for example, as many times as you want, within one year from visa issue. Additionally, some countries also require at least 6 months of passport residual validity after leaving the territory.

Private Jets often enjoy special care of immigration checks done directly on board the aircraft by the immigration officer, so the passenger doesn’t have to queue at the airport.

Where a state does not recognize another, or is in dispute with it for political reasons or wars, it may prohibit the use of their passport for travel to that other country or may forbid the entry to holders of that other country's passports, and sometimes to others who have, for example, just visited the nation.

Her Majesty, the Queen of The United Kingdom doesn’t have a passport, as the document is issued under her name, therefore she doesn’t really need one.

Vatican, the independent state inside Rome, doesn’t have immigrations checks, however the authorities do issue the passports. Passport number 1 is always owned by the Pope.

150.000 people bought their passport of Sealand nation on internet. Sealand is a non-recognized independent country, located in between France and UK.

In Europe, the issue of the passport has different costs in the different states. Most expensive is Belgium: you have to spend 210 EUR to re-issue your document. Spain is the cheapest with 25.50 EUR. Passport is also necessary to fly on private jet within the countries which belong to the Schengen agreement (signed in 1985 and including almost all the countries who take part of the European Union).

Nicaragua passport owns 89 different security systems, including some bi-dimensional bar codes, holograms and filigree that brings it to the top of the list of the documents more difficult to counterfeit.

The power of a passport is calculated on the base of how many different countries you can enter without a visa. The Danish passport recently raised the rank up to the 4th position and open the doors for its owners to 187 different countries around the world without visa. Top three global passports rank is:  First position is Japan which allow access without visa to 190 countires, followed by Singapore (189), then Germany, France and South Corea on third position with 188 different states around the world. In last position, number 106, we find Iraq and Afghanistan that have access to 30 countires without a visa (source www.henleypassportindex.com).