United States Passport Card

United States Passport Card
The front of a United States passport card.
Date first issued	July 14, 2008
Issued by	United States
Type of document	Passport card
Purpose	Identification
Eligibility requirements	United States nationality
Expiration	10 years after acquisition for people at least age 16; 5 years for minors under 16
Cost	$30 (adults) / $15 (minors under 16) $25 execution fee (required for all minor cards and an adult's first passport)

$30 (adults) / $15 (minors under 16)

The passport card (previously known as the People Access Security Service Card, or PASS Card) is a credit card–sized national Identity card and limited travel document produced in the United States to meet the documentary requirements of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) as an alternative to the traditional passport booklet. The U.S. passport card is, like a passport, only issued to U.S. citizens and non-citizen nationals. The passport card's intended primary purpose is to issue to the U.S citizens an easy carrying federal "national" Identity card and, which also allow cardholders to cross the United States border into and out of Bermuda, Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean countries at land border crossings or sea ports-of-entry. The passport card cannot be used for international air travel. However it is an acceptable form of identification for domestic air travel inside the United States.

Applications have been accepted since February 1, 2008; production of the cards began July 14, 2008. By the end of 2015, more than 10 million Passport Cards had been issued to U.S. citizens. The card is manufactured by L-1 Identity Solutions.National identity cards with similar utility are common inside the European Union countries for both national and international use.

As a result of the September 11 attacks, the United States began implementing a range of measures to increase the security of its borders and its identity documents. One result of this was WHTI, which mandates that a smaller, more secure number of documents verifying both identity and citizenship be used to facilitate international border crossing. Previous to WHTI, many different types of documents were acceptable to cross the border, including birth certificates issued by thousands of different authorities within the United States and Canada. As a result of WHTI, American citizens traveling to Canada would have been required to obtain a passport booklet in order to cross the border. In order to offer a less expensive and more portable alternative to border communities and frequent travelers, the passport card was developed.