Passport Colors by Country 2025

In order to travel out of their home countries, people need passports. In addition, some countries require visas for entry. In general, if someone is granted a visa, that visa needs to be either stamped or stapled to one of the pages inside of the passport. Then, the visa has to be presented with the passport to the border control agent. Border control agents see a wide variety of passports every day, and there are several ways in which the passports can vary. Passports come in different shapes and sizes, have different colors, and they are valid for varying lengths of time.

What Do the Passport Colors Mean?

No governing body in the world is responsible for deciding what color passports have to be. However, some organizations, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization, do give recommendations from time to time regarding which color passports should be. This same governing body also issued recommendations regarding how information should be printed on passports. This includes the size of the text used, the font, and where the text is located. Even though no single rule governs the color of passports, countries use either black, green, blue, or red on their passports.

What Is the Most Commonly Used Passport Color in the World?

The most commonly used color for passports in the world is red. One of the biggest reasons why red is so common among passports is that just about all of the member states of the European Union use red passports. The only country in the European Union that does not use a red passport is Croatia. Furthermore, some countries changed the color of their passports to red once they applied to join the European Union. These countries include Georgia, Serbia, Turkey, and Macedonia (as of early 2024, all four had been accepted as candidates, but not yet granted full membership). These countries changed their passports to red because the European Union wants it easy for border control agents to spot a passport from the European Union.

What Color Are Passports From the United States?

Passports issued by the United States of America are blue. Specifically, they are a dark blue color, similar to the blue used on the flag. Just about every country throughout North and South America uses a blue passport. Some of the biggest countries that use blue passports include Venezuela, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and numerous Asian countries. In addition, United States territories also use blue passports. These include Guam, Puerto Rico, and American Samoa. Furthermore, a lot of the countries located in the Caribbean also use blue passports. It is believed that many of these countries use blue passports because the color is meant to symbolize the New World, such as countries from North America and South America.