Under the Patriot Act introduced by the United States of America (US) in 2001, foreign nationals visiting the US under the Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) are required to have a machine readable passport with effect from 1 October 2003. Children including infants are also required to have their own machine-readable passports.

2 Singapore is on the US VWP. This allows Singapore citizens travelling on Singapore Passports to enter USA without having to obtain a US visa if their stay does not exceed 90 days.

Who needs to apply for a new passport?

3 All Singapore Passports issued locally from 2 Jan 1991 are machine-readable. Hence, Singaporeans holding passports issued from 2 Jan 1991 onwards can continue to visit the US without having to apply for a visa. (Please refer to the Annex for samples of a non machine-readable and a machine-readable Singapore passport.) However, the following groups of Singaporeans will need to apply for a machine-readable Singapore Passport if they wish to continue to travel to US without a US visa:

- Holders of non machine-readable Singapore passports issued before 18 Oct 1999 by Singapore overseas missions; and
- Children whose particulars are included in one of their parent's passport.

4 Holders of non-machine readable passports and children whose particulars are included in their parent's passport may still travel to the US after 1 Oct 2003, but would need to apply for a visa to do so.

Notifications to Individual
5 The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) has sent individual notifications to advise those holding non machine-readable passports to apply for a new passport and will be following up with a reminder. ICA will also advise the parent of the child/(children) whose particulars are currently included in their passport to apply for new passports for their children should they intend to travel to US after 1 Oct 2003 visa-free.

END OF NEWS RELEASE

Immigration & Checkpoints Authority
11 Sep 2003