Albanian passport

Albanian passport
The front cover of a contemporary Albanian biometric passport.
Date first issued	March 24, 2009
Issued by	Albania
Type of document	Passport
Purpose	Identification and travel abroad
Eligibility requirements	Albanian citizenship
Expiration	10 years

The Albanian passport is a travel and identity document that is issued to citizens who are nationals of Albania and allows them to travel abroad.^[1] The authority responsible for issuing is the Ministry of Interior.

Albanian passport is one of the 5 passports with the most improved rating globally since 2006 in terms of number of countries that its holders may visit without a visa.^[2]

Rigid data page of the biometric passport, made from polycarbonate plastic with the microchip embedded

Biometric passport

Starting in May 2009, the Albanian Government, as part of a larger project to modernize and bring to the best international standards, has started issuing biometric passport ^[3] and biometric ID card^[4] for its citizens.

In order to get the passport each Albanian citizen may go to the local post office and pay the price of 7,500 (seven thousand five hundred) lek(€50) and afterwards go to the Registry office of the municipality where the person is photographed, and the fingerprints are digitized. The data collected are sent to the center of production in Tirana. The ideation and the way of producing the new Albanian e-Passport is made in front of a single civil servant (personal identification, photographing, finding fingerprints, and digital signature) makes this document one of the most reliable and advanced in the world. The switch to a biometric passport was one of the conditions for the Schengen Area visa liberalization for the citizens of Albania.^[5]

Since March 2011 biometric passport and identity card can be requested at the Albanian consulates in Greece and Italy to serve immigrants who live there.

Physical appearance

The data page of the passport is from rigid polycarbonate plastic and contains a microchip embedded in which are stored biometric data of the holder such as fingerprints, photo and signature. The data are extracted from the chip with wireless RFID technology. It has excellent safety standards and anti counterfeiting. The photo is scanned on the page and is replied by side and it is UV reactive. The alphanumeric code at the bottom of the data page makes it readable with optical scanners, such as the airport ones. The code includes microprinting, holographic images, images visible only with UV light, filigree and other details.

The Albanian biometric passport meets all standards set by International Civil Aviation Organization.

The data is written in Albanian and English. The passport is valid for 10 years.

History

The first Albanian passports were issued in the 1920s, when the consolidation of the Albanian state began. During the communist period from 1945 until 1991, Albania did not allow foreign travel of its citizens and therefore did not issue ordinary passports for foreign travel, only diplomatic and service passports in limited number. Since the change of Albania's political system in 1991-1992, the authorities have issued passports to all Albanian citizens who request it.

From 1991 until 1996 the passport was red and did not contain any safety element if not a dry stamp on the photo. The data were written by hand. It still had the Albanian communist Coat of Arms.
From 1996 until 2002 the passport was brown and had the first security elements as the data page and the photo was laminated. The data were written by machine. It was manufactured by a Canadian company.
From 2002 until 2009 the passport was red and had safety standards and anti counterfeiting similar to the biometric passport except the microchip. It was manufactured by the German firm Bundesdruckerei.
Since 2009 the biometric passport is burgundy coloured, similar to those of the European Union. It is manufactured by the French company Sagem Sécurité.^[6]

Visa requirements

Main article: Visa requirements for Albanian citizens

Visa requirements for Albanian citizens

In 2015, Albanian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 94 countries and territories, ranking the Albanian passport 52nd in the world according to the Visa Restrictions Index.

Gallery

Albanian passports
1991 Albanian passport
1996 Albanian passport
2002 Albanian passport
2009 Albanian biometric () passport
Albanian and Italian biometric passports issued in 2009

References

External links

Passports

Africa

Central

CEMAC	Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Congo, Republic of the Equatorial Guinea Gabon

Angola Congo, Democratic Republic of the São Tomé and Príncipe

Eastern

Northern

Southern

Western

Mauritania Saint Helena¹

ECOWAS	Benin Burkina Faso Cape Verde Côte d'Ivoire Gambia Ghana Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Mali Niger Nigeria Senegal Sierra Leone Togo

Americas

Caribbean

Anguilla¹ British Virgin Islands¹ Cayman Islands¹ Cuba Dominican Republic Montserrat¹ Turks and Caicos Islands¹

CARICOM	Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Dominica Grenada Haiti Jamaica Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Trinidad and Tobago

Central

Costa Rica Panama

CARICOM	Belize

Central America-4	El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Nicaragua

North

South

Chile

Andean	Bolivia Colombia Ecuador Peru

CARICOM	Guyana Suriname

Mercosur	Argentina Brazil Paraguay Uruguay Venezuela

Asia

Central & North	Afghanistan Kazakhstan⁶ Kyrgyzstan Russia³ Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

East	People's Republic of China Hong Kong¹¹ Macao¹¹ Japan Korea, North Korea, South Mongolia Republic of China (Taiwan)⁸

South	Bangladesh Bhutan India Maldives Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

Southeast	Brunei Burma Cambodia East Timor Indonesia Laos Malaysia Philippines Singapore Thailand Vietnam

West	Abkhazia⁵ ⁹ Armenia⁷ Azerbaijan⁵ Bahrain Cyprus⁷ Egypt⁸ Georgia⁵ Iran Iraq Israel Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Nagorno-Karabakh⁷ ⁹ Northern Cyprus⁷ ⁹ Oman Palestinian Authority Qatar Saudi Arabia South Ossetia⁵ ⁹ Syria Turkey⁴ United Arab Emirates Yemen

Europe

Other Europe

European Union

Oceania

Australia Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia, Federated States of Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Pitcairn Islands¹ Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu

International organizations
Defunct passports
Passport types

International organizations	European Union laissez-passer International Committee of the Red Cross Interpol United Nations laissez-passer

Defunct	British Indian Empire¹ Czechoslovakia East Germany Korean Empire League of Nations refugee Mandatory Palestine Rhodesia Soviet Union¹² UNMIK Travel Document Yugoslavia

Types	Biometric Camouflage Diplomatic Fake Hajj Horse Internal International Machine-readable Pet Travel document alien refugee stateless person World

¹ A) Includes Crown Dependencies, British Overseas Territories, and former British plantations, crown colonies, colonies, protectorates, protected states, mandates, trust territories and other British possessions.
B) The Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey are not part of the European Union, but Manxmen and Channel Islanders are citizens of the European Union; the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, and Manxmen and Channel Islanders themselves (unless they qualify and apply for recognition of a change in status), are however excluded from the benefits of the Four Freedoms of the European Union.
C) The Government of the United Kingdom also issue passports to British nationals who are not British citizens with the right of abode in the United Kingdom and who are also not otherwise citizens of the European Union.

² Open border with Schengen Area.

³ Russia is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. The vast majority of its population (80%) lives in European Russia, therefore Russia as a whole is included as a European country here.

⁴ Turkey is a transcontinental country in the Middle East and Southeast Europe. Turkey has a small part of its territory (3%) in Southeast Europe called Turkish Thrace.

⁵ Azerbaijan and Georgia (Abkhazia; South Ossetia) are transcontinental countries. Both have a small part of their territories in the European part of the Caucasus.

⁶ Kazakhstan is a transcontinental country. Kazakhstan has a small part of its territories located west of the Urals in Eastern Europe.

⁷ Armenia (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Cyprus (Northern Cyprus) are entirely in Southwest Asia but having socio-political connections with Europe.

⁸ Egypt is a transcontinental country in North Africa and Western Asia. Egypt has a small part of its territory in Western Asia called Sinai peninsula.

⁹ Partially recognized.

¹⁰ Not recognized by any other state.

¹¹ Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China

¹² The Soviet Union was a transcontinental country located in Eurasia

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