Five Nations Passport Group facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Five Nations Passport Group
Five Nations shown in dark blue
Members	Australia  Canada  New Zealand  United Kingdom  United States

The Five Nations Passport Group is a special group where five countries work together. These countries are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They meet to share ideas and tips about making, improving, and managing passports.

This group helps make sure passports are safe and easy to use. They also discuss how to make travel smoother for people from these countries. The countries in the group have similar ways of issuing passports. For example, their passport systems are mostly managed from one central place. Also, none of these countries have a required national ID system. This means people's personal details are not stored in one big government database.

Who Manages Passports?

Each country in the Five Nations Passport Group has a specific government agency that handles passports. These agencies are:

•  Australia: The Australian Passport Office
•  Canada: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
•  New Zealand: The Department of Internal Affairs
•  United Kingdom: His Majesty's Passport Office
•  United States: The Department of State

Passport Features

Passports from the Five Nations countries don't all look exactly the same, unlike passports from the European Union. Instead, these countries share their best ideas to make passports better.

Modern Passport Technology

All Five Nations passports use modern technology. They are:

• Biometric: This means they have a special chip inside. This chip stores unique information about you, like your photo. It helps confirm you are the real passport holder.
• Machine-readable: This means a machine can quickly scan your passport. It reads your information from a special code. This makes checking passports faster at borders.

All these passports are also a standard size, called B7. This size is 88 mm by 125 mm.

Easier Border Crossings

People holding Five Nations passports can often use special fast lanes at borders. These are called automated border control systems.

• If you have a passport from any of the Five Nations, you can use the SmartGate system in Australia and New Zealand.
• You can also use the ePassport gates in the UK.
• British passport holders can join the Global Entry program in the US. This helps them get through US customs faster.
• Canadians can use the NEXUS program for quicker border crossings into the US.
• Australia is also planning to join the Global Entry program soon.

How Many Passports Are There?

Many passports from the Five Nations countries are currently in use around the world. Here's a look at the numbers:

Passport		Number of Passports in Use
Australia		14,614,941 (as of 2020)
Canada		23,790,000 (as of 2018)
New Zealand		2,900,000
United Kingdom	British	51,116,513 (as of 2019)
	Gibraltar	2,240 (as of 2019)
	Other British Passports	421,828 (as of 2019)
United States		143,116,633 (as of 2020 fiscal year)

Related Topics

• Anglosphere
• Border Five
• CANZUK
• Five Country Conference
• Five Eyes
• Australian passport
• British passport
• Canadian passport
• New Zealand passport
• United States passport
  • United States Passport Card