Thursday 7th October 2004
From 26 October 2004, if you are planning a trip to the US, make sure that you and your children each have your own machine-readable passport.
From this date British visitors travelling to the USA under the Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) must have their own machine-readable passport. Anyone without their own machine-readable passport, including children on a parent´s passport, will need a visa to travel to the US.
How do you know if your passport is machine-readable? It´s easy to check - there are two lines of letters, numbers and ´>´s printed at the bottom of the personal information page (page with photograph and personal details). The text will be on a white strip on older machine-readable passports and directly on the pink page of newer passports. If there are no lines of text, the passport is not machine-readable.
