Bangladeshi passport

Bangladeshi passport
The front cover of a contemporary Bangladeshi passport.
Issued by	Bangladesh
Type of document	Passport
Purpose	Identification
Eligibility requirements	Bangladeshi citizenship
Expiration	5 years from the date of issue

The Bangladeshi Passport is issued to the citizens of Bangladesh for international travel. The passport is issued by the Government of The People's Republic of Bangladesh or by any of its overseas missions to the Bangladeshi citizens who are citizens by birth or by descent. The passport of Bangladesh is valid in all countries of the world except Israel, which is a state not recognised by Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Government has implemented a project to replace 6.6 million Bangladeshi passports with new machine-readable passports. According to a guideline of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Machine-readable Passport (MRP) and Machine-readable Visa (MRV) issuance was started by Bangladesh Government in April 2010. However, all traditional non-MR passports will be honoured as a bona fide travel document issued by the Bangladesh Government until it expires. All traditional non-MR passports must be withdrawn from circulation by November 2015. Machine-readable passports for Bangladesh are produced by Polish Security Printing Works (Polska Wytwornia Papierow Wartosciowych).

The Bangladesh Government will set up 85 new passport offices and 6 visa cells at home and abroad for issuing Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) and Machine Readable Visas (MRVs). For non-resident Bangladeshis, 66 passport offices will be set up at 66 Bangladesh Missions and Consulates abroad, who will issue the Machine-readable Passports. The replacement of all of the passports will take almost 3 years, which will fall inside the deadline of November 2015.

(a) Paper application or

(b) Online application

A Bangladeshi citizen may hold any of the following three types of passports.

This is the most common type of passport. Any citizen of Bangladesh may possess a Regular or a Business passport for international travel. Any age of Children travelling also requires a passport and may not be able to travel with their parent's passport. The maximum validity period of a "business" or "regular" passport is 5 years, which can be 10 years as well in some cases.

Government Officials of Bangladesh are entitled to receive this type of passport. It provides the holder visa free access to certain countries such as Russia, China, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Kuwait, Cambodia, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Chile, Turkey, Laos, Belarus that usually doesn't allow visa free access to "regular" or "business" passport holders. Official passports are identified by a blue stamp on the first page that reads "Official".