The passport also serves as a means of identification as required by the Dutch law since 1 January 2005 for all persons over the age of fourteen.

The first passport regulations in the Netherlands were enacted in 1813, shortly after the country regained its independence from the First French Empire in the Battle of Arnhem (1813).

This passport, nicknamed the "black rag" (zwarte vod) from the colour of its cover, became increasingly prone to misuse after the 1970s due to its lack of security features.

[8] In 1983, the Dutch government decided to develop a new, EU-format machine readable passport, and entered negotiations with the Sdu publishing house and other interested parties.

On 6 June 1986, the KEP BV (a partnership between Kodak, Elba (a Schiedam-based printing company) and Philips) was awarded the contract to develop the new passport type, reportedly because the then-state-owned Sdu publishing house was undergoing privatisation.

KEP BV was declared insolvent on 27 December 1988 as a result of said controversy, and a new design by the Sdu publishing house was chosen instead.

These captions are numbered and translations into the twenty-three official languages of the European Union are given on the last two pages of the passport.