Ukrainian Passport - International Passport

International Passport

See also Biometric passports in Ukraine.

Passport for travel abroad, commonly known as an "International Passport", is a document used for travel outside Ukraine. The passport information is recorded in Ukrainian and English. Passports are issued upon demand and is valid for 10 years. It is permitted to have more than one passport.

The law of Ukraine on a unified state demographic register and identity documents, which envisages the introduction of electronic passports for Ukrainians, came into force on December 6, 2013. The issuing of international biometric passports began as of January 1, 2013.

The Ukrainian international passport follows international standards. Machine-readable passports with two machine-readable strings at the bottom of the first page appeared in the mid 1990s. Current Ukrainian international passport looks like a biometric one, but in fact does not have any biometric information. Legislation permitting fingerprinting has not been yet adopted.

Photos in the passports issued since 2007 are black and white, laser imprinted. As a security feature, an additional holder's photo is specially imprinted to be seen only when looking to the light through the page of the passport. Previously, passports used to be issued either with a glued-in colour photo or with a colour imprinted photo. The previously issued passports are valid until their expiration date.

Ukrainian law allows for issuing international passports with 32 and 64 pages, but in practice only 32-page passports have been produced. Recently international passports have blue cover. Covers of the international passports issued in 1990s were red, allowing easy visual distinction from blue-colour internal passports.

By default, the first and last names in the international passport are transliterated from Ukrainian to English according to the National transliteration system (1996). However, any person has an option to request the desired English spelling of his first and last name, if he holds any document already having that spelling.

International Passports are issued only to citizens aged 18 and older (16 and older in case of permanent foreign residency). Prior to that age, Ukrainian citizens can get a Travel Document of a Child (PR type) similar in appearance to the passport. It is valid for 3 years, and has only 8 pages. In some rare case Ukrainian citizens are allowed to have International Passport before the age of 18 or 16, but it also is valid for only 3 years. If a child holding Ukrainian citizenship has been adopted by a foreign citizen — he or she may get regular International Passport, which is valid for 10 years, just as for adults, instead of getting Child Travel Document.