A single passport covered a man and his wife and children, but did not include a photo or any personal details like age, height, or eye colour.

[4] In the First World War the British Government required passports in 1915, and New Zealand followed from November 1915, with an increased workload for the department and for police.

In February 1997, the New Zealand High Commission in London began issuing machine readable passports.

[17] On 4 November 2005, the Department of Internal Affairs began issuing New Zealand biometric passports (EA series).

Passports that were issued prior to 24 April 2005 remained valid until the date of expiry as stated on the biodata page.

On 23 November 2009, the Department of Internal Affairs launched a new version of the biometric passport (LA series), supplied under a contract with the Canadian Bank Note Company at a cost of just under $100 million over five years.

[20] Unlike the previous biometric passport, photographs on the biodata page are now laser engraved in black and white for extra security.

The committee concluded "On the evidence received, we are not convinced that the reduction in detected fraudulent passports is a result of the shorter validity period.

The biometric security features have led countries such as China, Canada and the Netherlands to reintroduce ten-year passports.

On 3 May 2021, the Department of Internal Affairs launched an updated version of the biometric passport (RA series).

Owing largely to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on travel, existing stock of the previous series continued to be issued until depletion.

The fee for the endorsement is completely waived if electronically linked to or affixed inside a passport issued by Austria, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Italy or Turkey.

It is also easier to obtain an endorsement indicating New Zealand citizenship than a New Zealand passport overseas, since an endorsement can be issued at INZ offices in Apia, Bangkok, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Jakarta, London, Moscow, Mumbai, New Delhi, Nukuʻalofa, Pretoria, Shanghai, Singapore, Suva, Sydney and Taipei, whilst New Zealand passports are only issued overseas by the Department of Internal Affairs in Sydney and London.

[46] In 2004, two Israelis, suspected agents working for Mossad, Eli Cara and Uriel Kelman, were convicted and jailed for attempting to obtain New Zealand passports by submitting fraudulent applications.

A third suspected Mossad agent, Zev William Barkan, who was a former Israeli diplomat based in Europe was involved in stealing the identity of a tetraplegic Auckland resident to obtain a passport fraudulently in his name.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, concerns were raised that a group of Israelis may have again been attempting to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports,[47] but scant evidence of this has been found to date.

[48][49] After Ofer Mizrahi, an Israeli national, died after being crushed by falling masonry in a parked van, he was found in possession of more than one foreign passport and the New Zealand government investigated whether he and his companions had links to Mossad.

[50] There were concerns that the travellers may have been trying to infiltrate the police national computer system to gain access to information which could be used to clone New Zealand passports.

[47] His surviving travelling companions, Michal Fraidman, Liron Sade and Guy Jordan, met with Israeli officials and left New Zealand within twelve hours of the earthquake.