PassportInformation

Effective October 1st, 2003, the U.S. will be requiring a Machine Readable Passport (MRP) for entry, if you are traveling to the U.S. without a Visa as a resident of a Visa Waiver Program country.

These countries are Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Some countries, like the UK, have been issuing MRPs for quite some time. UK residents should be fine, unless traveling with children - individual passports are now required. Others have begun to issue MRPs more recently (France, Italy, Portugal, etc.). If your passport was issued in one of these countries and dates more than a few years, you will want to check.

MRPs look like this:

Updated: Sunday, August 3, 2003