The face page of a machine-readable passport has two parts:
Passport names are broken down into two components used in the VIZ and the MRZ:
Issuing countries determine how names are broken down into primary and secondary identifiers. The primary identifier may be the family name or include the entire name. Names not combined with the primary identifier may become part of the secondary identifier.
The two sections of the page have different rules about the spelling of names.
The VIZ contains the passport holder’s:
National characters are allowed in the VIZ. Transliterations into Roman-based characters should be provided for any names not written in Roman-based characters.
The MRZ follows strict rules that determine how passport information is shown. An MRZ example is:
The country that issues the passport converts non-Roman characters into Roman characters. These changes are based on two items:
T he Transliteration of Names topic describes this information.
Machine-readable Zone (MRZ)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
The following rules apply to the Name field in the MRZ:
o Apostrophes are omitted; for example, O’CONNOR becomes OCONNOR
o Hyphens are replaced by a filler character; for example, MARIE-THERESE becomes MARIE
Names in the MRZ are shown on the first line and limited to 39 characters. As a result, a name might be truncated to fit.
A breakdown of the MRZ Name field is shown below:
P indicates that the document is a passport. A country may choose to add one additional character as further identification.
Three-letter country code of the issuing country.
Primary identifier - If there is more than one component, they are separated by a single filler character.
Double filler characters indicate the end of the primary identifier.
Secondary identifier - Each component is separated by a single filler character.
Filler characters used to complete the line. They indicate there are no other name components included.