The first passport regulations of what nowadays constitute the present-day territory of Germany were first enacted by the North German Confederation on 12 October 1867.

[2] During the First World War and in the interwar period thereafter, supplementary ordinances were issued on the obligation for German citizens to possess a passport.

The Bekanntmachung zur Ausführung der Paßverordnung as enacted on 4 June 1924[4] stipulated that only the new type in the form of a 15½ x 10½ cm booklet could be used.

Between 1933 and 1936, the enactment of foreign exchange restrictions (10 marks of silver as cash) and the thousand-mark ban by the Nazi government effectively constituted exit permits.

Only on 1 February 1951 did West Germany gain full rights to issue its own passports independent of the Allied occupying forces.

[6] West German passports at that time contained a "Job Description" field of the passport holder; this was initially necessary as the Allied occupying forces reserved the right to approve West German citizens obtaining travel visas until 1955.

In 1980, the biggest passport scandal in the Federal Republic of Germany (de:Passfälscherskandal) was uncovered when 19 North American ice hockey players were found to have been fraudulently issued with West German passports in order to play in the Eishockey-Bundesliga.

[10][11][12][13] Since 1 November 2005, German passports have had a contactless smartcard (proximity card) chip and 13.56 MHz loop antenna embedded into the front cover page,[14] in accordance with ICAO standards.

The chip and antenna are not easily visually recognisable, but their presence is indicated using the ICAO biometric passport symbol at the bottom of the front cover.

It carries all the data printed in the passport, including a JPEG file of the photo, protected by a digital signature.

Germany therefore became only the fifth country in the world (after Malaysia, Thailand, Sweden, and Australia) to introduce biometric passports.

On 1 November 2007, several changes were made to the passport: German names: German names containing umlauts (ä, ö, ü) and/or ß are spelled in the correct way in the non-machine-readable zone of the passport, but with AE, OE, UE, and/or SS in the machine-readable zone, e.g. Müller becomes MUELLER, Groß becomes GROSS, and Gößmann becomes GOESSMANN.

Names originally written in a non-Latin writing system may pose another problem if there are various internationally recognised transcription standards.

A German passport (32 pages, delivered within a month, issued to a person 24 years and older) costs €70.

Unlike a regular German passport, the Kinderreisepass did not include biometric features and lacked the inscription "European Union" at the top of the front cover.

All other features were similar to those of a regular passport: the burgundy red colour and the German coat of arms printed at the centre of the front cover.

As in other passports, the main information page ended with a 2-line machine-readable code, according to ICAO standard 9303.

[17] Germany allows its citizens in exceptional cases to hold more than one valid German passport to circumvent certain travel restrictions.

A law adopted in June 2019 allows for the revocation of German citizenship of dual citizens who have joined or supported a terror group such as the Islamic State and are at least 18 years old.