Machine-readable passport

A machine-readable passport is a machine-readable travel document with the data on the identity page encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine-readable travel documents in the 1980s. Most travel passports worldwide are MRPs. The International Civil Aviation Organization requires all ICAO member states to issue only MRPs as of April 1, 2010, and all non-MRP passports must expire by November 24, 2015.
Machine-readable passports are standardized by the ICAO Document 9303 and have a special machine-readable zone, which is usually at the bottom of the identity page at the beginning of a passport. The ICAO 9303 describes three types of documents corresponding to the ISO/IEC 7810 sizes:

"Type 3" is typical of passport booklets. The MRZ consists of 2 lines × 44 characters.
"Type 2" is relatively rare with 2 lines × 36 characters.
"Type 1" is of a credit card-size with 3 lines × 30 characters.

The fixed format allows specification of document type, name, document number, nationality, date of birth, sex, and document expiration date. All these fields are required on a passport. There is room for optional, often country-dependent, supplementary information. There are also two sizes of machine-readable visas similarly defined.
Computers with a camera and suitable software can directly read the information on machine-readable passports. This enables faster processing of arriving passengers by immigration officials, and greater accuracy than manually-read passports, as well as faster data entry, more data to be read and better data matching against immigration databases and watchlists.
Apart from optically readable information, many passports contain an RFID chip which enables computers to read a higher amount of information, for example a photo of the bearer. These passports are called biometric passports and are also described by ICAO 9303.

Format

Passport booklets

Passport booklets have an identity page containing the identity data. This page is in the ID-3 size of 125 × 88 mm.
The data of the machine-readable zone consists of two rows of 44 characters each. The only characters used are the Latin letters A–Z, the Arabic numerals 0–9, and the filler character.

Positions	Length	Characters	Meaning
1	1	alpha	P, indicating a passport
2	1	alpha+	Type
3–5	3	alpha	Issuing country or organization
6–44	39	alpha+	Surname, followed by two filler characters, followed by given names. Given names are separated by single filler characters. Some countries do not differentiate between surname and given name, such as the Malaysian Passport

In the name field, spaces, hyphens and other punctuation are represented by, except apostrophes, which are skipped. If the names are too long, names are abbreviated to their most significant parts. In that case, the last position must contain an alphabetic character to indicate possible truncation, and if there is a given name, the two fillers and at least one character of it must be included.

Positions	Length	Characters	Meaning
1–9	9	alpha+num+	Passport number
10	1	numeric	Check digit over digits 1–9
11–13	3	alpha+	Nationality or Citizenship
14–19	6	numeric	Date of birth
20	1	numeric	Check digit over digits 14–19
21	1	alpha+	Sex
22–27	6	numeric	Expiration date of passport
28	1	numeric	Check digit over digits 22–27
29–42	14	alpha+num+	Personal number
43	1	numeric+	Check digit over digits 29–42
44	1	numeric	Check digit over digits 1–10, 14–20, and 22–43

Official travel documents

Smaller documents such as identity and passport cards are usually in the ID-1 size, which is 85.6 × 54.0 mm, the same size as credit cards. The data of the machine-readable zone in a TD1 size card consists of three rows of 30 characters each. The only characters used are A–Z, 0–9 and the filler character.
Some official travel documents are in the larger ID-2 size, 105.0 × 74.0. They have a layout of the MRZ with two rows of 36 characters each, similar to the TD3 format, but with 31 characters for the name, 7 for the personal number and one less check digit. Yet some official travel documents are in the booklet format with a TD3 identity page.
The format of the first row for ID-1 documents is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1	1	alpha	I, A or C
2	1	alpha+num+	Type, This is at the discretion of the issuing state or authority, but 1–2 should be AC for Crew Member Certificates and V is not allowed as 2nd character. ID or I< are typically used for nationally issued ID cards and IP for passport cards.
3–5	3	alpha+	Issuing country or organization
6–14	9	alpha+num+	Document number
15	1	num+	Check digit over digits 6–14
16–30	15	alpha+num+	Optional

The format of the second row is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1–6	6	num	Date of birth
7	1	num	Check digit over digits 1–6
8	1	alpha+	Sex
9-14	6	num	Expiration date of document
15	1	num	Check digit over digits 9–14
16–18	3	alpha+	Nationality
19–29	11	alpha+num+	Optional¹
30	1	num	Check digit over digits 6–30, 1–7, 9–15, 19–29

1: United States Passport Cards, as of 2011, use this field for the application number that produced the card.
The format of the third row is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1–30	30	alpha+	Surname, followed by two filler characters, followed by given names

The format of the first row for ID-2 documents is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1	1	alpha	I, P, A or C
2	1	alpha+	Type, This is at the discretion of the issuing state or authority, but 1–2 should be AC for Crew Member Certificates and V is not allowed as 2nd character. ID or I< are typically used for nationally issued ID cards and IP for passport cards.
3–5	3	alpha+	Issuing country or organization
6–36	30	alpha+	Name and surname. If there is more than one name they are separated by single filler. Double filler indicates the end of the primary identifier.

The format of the second row is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1–9	9	num	Document, ID number
10	1	num	Check digit over document number
11-13	3	alpha+	Nationality
14-19	6	num	Birthday
20	1	num	Check digit for birthday
21	1	alpha	Sex: M, F, or X, for male, female, or unspecified
22-27	6	num	Expiration date
28	1	num	Check digit for expiration
29-35	7	alpha+num+	Optional data
35	1	num	Check digit over optional data
36	1	num	Check digit over digits 1–10, 14–20, and 22–35

Machine-readable visas

The ICAO Document 9303 part 7 describes machine-readable visas. They come in two different formats:

MRV-A - 80 mm × 120 mm, 2 × 44 chars
MRV-B - 74 mm × 105 mm, 2 × 36 chars

The format of the first row of the machine-readable zone is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1	1	alpha	"V"
2	1	alpha+	Type, this is at the discretion of the issuing state or authority
3–5	3	alpha+	Issuing country or organization
6–44	39	alpha+	Name in MRV-A
6–36	31	alpha+	Name in MRV-B

The format of the second row is:

Positions	Length	Chars	Meaning
1-9	9	alpha+num+	Passport or Visa number
10	1	num	Check digit
11–13	3	alpha+	Nationality
14–19	6	num	Date of birth
20	1	num	Check digit
21	1	alpha+	Sex
22-27	6	num	Valid until
28	1	num	Check digit
29–44	16	alpha+num+	Optional data in MRV-A
29–36	8	alpha+num+	Optional data in MRV-B