U.S. passport booklets conform with recommended standards (i.e., size, composition, layout, technology) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

For example, an internal passport dated 1815 was presented to Massachusetts citizen George Barker to allow him to travel as a free black man to visit relatives in Southern slave states.

[20] Passports issued by American authorities other than the Department of State breached propriety and caused confusion abroad.

The problems led the Congress in 1856 to give the Department of State the sole authority to issue passports.

World War I ended on November 11, 1918, but the passport requirement lingered until March 3, 1921, the last day of the Wilson administration.

[26] A 1978 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 made it unlawful to enter or depart the United States without an issued passport even in peacetime.

A passport application could cover, variously, a wife, a child, or children, one or more servants, or a woman traveling under the protection of a man.

Green covers were again issued from April 1993 until March 1994, and included a special tribute to Benjamin Franklin in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the United States Consular Service.

In the succeeding decades the periods of validity for adult applicants were gradually extended to three, five, and eventually ten years, the current standard.

[31][full citation needed] In 2000, the Department of State started to issue passports with digital photos, and as of 2010, all previous series have expired.

[39] Additionally, applicants changing their gender would no longer be required to provide external documentation like a court order or medical certification.

[42] Issuance of passports with the "X" marker was suspended in January 2025 after the second Trump administration declared the federal government would only recognize binary sex assigned at conception via an executive order.

[43] The Biden administration issued an executive order in December 2021 requiring the creation of an online passport renewal system.

Although the Department found the program successful, some legislators in Congress criticized the technical issues that some customers experienced.

They are located in Arkansas; Atlanta; Boston; Buffalo; Chicago; Colorado; Connecticut; Dallas; Detroit; El Paso; Honolulu; Houston; Los Angeles; Miami; Minneapolis; New Hampshire; New Orleans; New York City; Philadelphia; San Diego; San Francisco; San Juan; Seattle; Tucson; Vermont; and Washington, D.C. Two additional passport agencies are not open to the general public: one in Charleston, and the Special Issuance Agency in Washington, D.C., which issues official, diplomatic, and no-fee U.S.

[54] It is unlawful to enter or exit the U.S. without a valid passport or passport-replacement document compliant with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), or without an exception or waiver.

[58] A notable example of enforcement of this was the 1948 denial of a passport to U.S. Representative Leo Isacson, who sought to go to Paris to attend a conference as an observer for the American Council for a Democratic Greece, a Communist front organization, because of the group's role in opposing the Greek government in the Greek Civil War.

"[63] Therefore, even in the absence of a valid passport, U.S. citizens are not denied entry into the United States, though these travelers may be delayed while the CBP attempts to verify their identity and citizenship status.

In most cases, these are inspected at check-in before the individual can be issued a boarding pass by an airline or cruise operator/shipping company, or by immigration authorities at Canadian or Mexican ports of entry on land.

Travel of U.S. citizens and nationals around the United States and across its international borders is generally controlled by means other than passports, such as the No Fly List.

As per Haig v. Agee, the presidential administration may deny or revoke passports for foreign policy or national security reasons at any time.

[97] In a 2004 USPS Passport Services publication, "Fees total $85 for adults (16 years and older), with separate payments of $30 to the U.S.

[99] The State Department raised these and other fees after conducting "an exhaustive study of the true cost of providing consular services.

However, if the passport book or card holder is unable or unwilling to relinquish their currently valid passport for the duration of the processing, they may submit other primary evidence of citizenship, such as a U.S. birth certificate or naturalization certificate, and apply as a first time applicant, paying the execution fee and submitting a written explanation as to why they are applying in this manner.

A citizen born outside the United States, who objects to the standard country name, may be able to have his city or town of birth entered on the passport.

[133] Special provisions exist to deal with the complexities of American passport holders born in the Greater China Region.

The masculine inflections of "Le Secrétaire d'Etat" and "El Secretario de Estado" are used in all passports, regardless of the sex of the Secretary of State at the time of issue.

That law also provides that foreigners who travel to the U.S., and want to enter the U.S. visa-free under the Visa Waiver Program, must bear machine-readable passports that comply with international standards.

[33] The capacity of the radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip is 64 kilobytes, which is large enough to store additional biometric identifiers in the future, such as fingerprints and iris scans.

Data in a passport chip is scannable by electronic readers, a capability which is intended to speed up immigration processing.