Swiss passport

 ( Passports By Country ) 

The Swiss passport is a biometric identity document issued by the Swiss Confederation. It can be ordinary or provisional, or in special cases, diplomatic or service-related.

There is also a green Swiss passport for foreigners, issued in specific cases of necessity (foreigners without documents from their country and at the same time holders of a residence permit, statelessness, asylum seekers, and others).

The passport, along with the Swiss identity card allows for freedom of movement in any of the states of EFTA and the EU. This is because Switzerland is a member state of EFTA, and through bilateral agreements with the EU.

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History of Swiss passports The first passports to be issued in what is now Switzerland were issued in 1490, for citizens of the canton of Schwyz. The first Swiss passport booklets were issued on 10 December 1915. The characteristic red Swiss passport was created in 1959. Until 1985 the Swiss passport included only the national languages of the time (French, German, and Italian) as well as English. Romansh language was added in the later Pass 85 after it was declared the fourth Swiss national language following a referendum. The order of the languages was then changed to German, French, Italian, Romansh, and English.

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Structure of the Swiss passport Later Swiss passports (Pass 03, 06, 10 and 22) contain 40 pages (instead of the previous 32) and a data page. 36 pages are provided for foreign visas and official stamps. The first page contains the bearer signature, as well as field 11 "Official observations". The pages 2–3 contain translations of the field labels of the data page in 13 (Pass 03) and 26 (Pass 06, 10 and 22) languages, respectively. Each page has a unique color pattern, as well as an incomplete Swiss cross which registers with the matching incomplete cross on the reverse side when held to light. On pages 8–33, the incomplete Swiss cross contains the microprinted name of a canton and the year it joined the Swiss Confederation, with the canton's coat of arms and a famous landmark in the top outer corner.

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Biometric passports Since 15 February 2010, non-biometric passports (Pass 03, 06 and 85) are no longer issued.

From 1 March 2010 and according to the Schengen Agreement, Swiss passports are all biometric. This is required for visa-free travel to the United States.

A new series of passport designs with increased security features was made available on 31 October 2022.

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Data page The Swiss passport includes the following fields on the polycarbonate data page

• Photo of the passport bearer (also microperforated in the polycarbonate card)
• Type (PA - without biometrics, PM - with biometrics, PD - temporary passport, PB - diplomatic passport)
• Code (CHE)
• Passport number
• 1 Surname
• 2 Given name(s)
• 3 Nationality
• 4 Date of birth (dd.mm.yyyy)
• 5 Sex (M/F)
• 6 Height (cm)
• 7 Place of origin: (municipality and canton) (NB: birthplace is not indicated in Swiss identity documents)
• 8 Date of issue
• 9 Authority
• 10 Date of expiry

The bottom of the data page is the machine-readable zone.

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Names with diacritics Names containing diacritics (ä, ö, ü, à, ç, é, è, etc.; the letter ß is not normally used in Swiss German) are spelled with diacritics outside the machine-readable zone, but in the machine-readable zone, German umlauts ( ä/ö/ü) are transcribed as ae/oe/ue (e.g. M üller becomes M UELLER) while other letters simply omit the diacritics (e.g. J ér ôme becomes J ER OME and Fran çois becomes FRAN COIS) according to ICAO conventions.

The transcription above is generally used for airplane tickets etc., but sometimes simple vowels are used (e.g. M ULLER instead of M ÜLLER or M UELLER). The three possible spelling variants of the same name (e.g. M üller / M ueller / M uller) on different documents can lead to confusion, and the use of two different spellings within the same document (as in the passport) may give people who are unfamiliar with the German orthography the impression that the document is a forgery.

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Endorsements Page 1, in addition to the signature line, is the designated area for official endorsements (field 11, "Official observations").

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Languages The entire passport is written in the four official languages (German, French, Italian, and Romansch) as well as English language, with the exception of page 40, containing use and care instructions only. Page 2 contains translations into 13 languages. In Pass 10, 13 additional languages were added in consideration of the 10 countries added to the EU in 2004 as well as Norwegian and Icelandic to cover the languages of the EFTA states. Consequently, the Swiss passport has 26 languages, exceeding the EU's own passports with 23 languages. Inside the back cover, the phrase "This passport contains 40 numbered pages" is written in the 26 languages. In Pass 22, all of the additional languages were removed.

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Timeline of the Swiss passport

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Pass 1915 Pass 1915 had a blue/green cover with no printing, and also only had the three Swiss official languages and no security features. There were no restrictions on the size of the photograph of the bearer, which could extend beyond the page margins.