The Colombian passport ( es, Pasaporte colombiano) is a
travel document
A travel document is an identity document issued by a government or international entity pursuant to international agreements to enable individuals to clear border control measures. Travel documents usually assure other governments that the beare ...
which is issued to citizens of
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
for the purpose of international travel. Since September 2015, a
biometric passport
A biometric passport (also known as an e-passport or a digital passport) is a traditional passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of the pa ...
has been issued, but the previously issued
machine-readable passport can be used until its expiration date.
Colombian citizens do not need a
passport
A passport is an official travel document issued by a government that contains a person's identity. A person with a passport can travel to and from foreign countries more easily and access consular assistance. A passport certifies the personal ...
when traveling to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. For these countries, they may use just their domestic identification cards called ''Cédula de Ciudadanía''.
Several drivers resulted in the issuing of the document:
* The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issued Resolution No. A36-15 in which it urged its 190 member countries to issue machine-readable passports from 2010. The intent of this resolution was to ensure the security and integrity of travel documents worldwide.
* Increased safety: The new book has special design features, and print materials that correspond to three levels of security.
* Allowing quick migration processes: the
machine-readable zone
A machine-readable passport (MRP) is a machine-readable travel document (MRTD) with the data on the identity page encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine-readable travel documents in the 1980s.
Mos ...
facilitates the process of recognition and registration of the passenger when entering or leaving a country, because a machine automatically interprets the information encoded in their passport, which reduces approximately 50% on-call time by immigration agents.
Application
The Colombian passport can be issued in any of the Passport Offices of the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 27 Governorates of the country and the Colombian consulates abroad. The presentation of the citizenship card (yellow with holograms) and the attendance of the applicant are mandatory because the photograph, signature and fingerprints are taken at the time of application. Passports are currently delivered within 24 hours in Bogotá, 48 working hours in the governorates, and from 48 hours to 5 working days in embassies and consulates, depending on the distance.
Current passport design
As of 1 September 2015, the Colombian passport includes
biometric technology. It uses the same machine-readable system, but with an integrated chip where information such as fingerprints, photos and data of the document holder is stored.
On 16 June 2010, the Colombian Foreign Ministry officially announced that the new passport design had been made official by the provisions of the
International Civil Aviation Organisation, which required the country to conform to the regulations currently in force in the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
, or at least to the standard used by 173 countries. From 15 July 2010, this document could be applied for in
Bogotá
Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...
and from 5 August 2010 at passport offices in the governorates of the rest of the country and consulates abroad. The biometric photograph of the passport must identify the person and for this reason, has requirements: it must be 4 x 5 cm in size, the background must be clear and uniform, the face visible, taken recently.
This document can be
machine-readable, as the data is laser-engraved. In addition, the barcode facilitates migration processes because the data of each citizen is uploaded directly to the migration servers at the airports. The document contains embossed and fluorescent holograms, which makes it almost impossible to forge and has the highest security standards.
In September 2018, the Colombian passport was recognized as the safest passport in the world during the first eID Forum.
Visa requirements
![Visa requirements for Colombian citizens Real](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Visa_requirements_for_Colombian_citizens_Real.png)
As of November 9 2022, Colombian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 137 countries and territories ranking the Colombian passport 28th in terms of travel freedom according to
passportindex.org.
See also
*
Colombian identity card
*
Colombian nationality law
Colombian nationality is typically obtained by birth in Colombia when one of the parents is either a Colombian national or a Colombian legal resident, by birth abroad when at least one parent was born in Colombia, or by naturalization, as define ...
*
Visa requirements for Colombian citizens
Visa requirements for Colombian citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of Colombia.
As of 9 November 2022, Colombian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 137 countri ...
References
External sources
*
Colombia.com Guia para los colombianos en el exterior
*
pasaportes.gov.co current Colombian Passport
Passports by country
Foreign relations of Colombia
Identity documents of Colombia
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