Greek passport
Encyclopedia
Greek passports are issued exclusively to Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 citizens for the purpose of international travel. Greek citizens can use their ID card
Identity document
An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...

 instead for travel within the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 and a number of other Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an countries. Biometric passport
Biometric passport
A biometric passport, also known as an e-passport or ePassport, is a combined paper and electronic passport that contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identity of travelers...

s have been issued since 26 August 2006, with old-style passports being declared invalid as of 1 January 2007. Since June 2009, the passport's RFID chip includes two index fingerprints as well as a high resolution JPEG
JPEG
In computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....

 image of the passport holder.

Passport appearance

The Greek passport follows the standard European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 passport
Passport
A passport is a document, issued by a national government, which certifies, for the purpose of international travel, the identity and nationality of its holder. The elements of identity are name, date of birth, sex, and place of birth....

 design, with a burgundy red cover and the national emblem
National emblem of Greece
The national emblem of Greece , also known as the coat of arms of Greece, consists of a blue escutcheon with a white cross totally surrounded by two laurel branches...

 emblazoned on the centre of the front cover. The word ΔΙΑΒΑΤΗΡΙΟ (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 for "passport") is inscribed below the coat of arms, while ΕΥΡΩΠΑΪΚΗ ΕΝΩΣΗ ("European Union") and ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ("Hellenic Republic") appear above.A Greek diplomatic passport has the same size and design as the standard one, but it features a black cover and the text ΔΙΠΛΩΜΑΤΙΚΟ ΔΙΑΒΑΤΗΡΙΟ ("diplomatic passport") inscribed below the coat of arms. Greek passports contain 32 pages and are valid for 5 years.

All fields on the bearer's page are indicated in Greek and in English, with the translation in the other E.U.-languages elsewhere in the passport. The main info of the bearer (name and place of birth) are transcription
Transcription (linguistics)
Transcription in the linguistic sense is the systematic representation of language in written form. The source can either be utterances or preexisting text in another writing system, although some linguists only consider the former as transcription.Transcription should not be confused with...

 from the Greek to the Latin script. The following fields are shown:
  • Type (P for Passport)
  • Passport number
  • Country [ΕΛΛ/GRC]
  • Surname [Greek/Latin script)
  • Name [Greek/Latin script)
  • Nationality [ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗ/Hellenic]
  • Date of Birth [Latin script]
  • Place of birth [Greek/Latin script]
  • Sex [M/F]
  • Issue Date [Latin script]
  • Expiry Date [Latin script]
  • Issuing Office [Greek/Latin script]

The bearer's page contains a machine readable strip starting with P>GRC.

Issuing process

Greek passports are issued by the National Passport Centre ("Διεύθυνση Διαβατηρίων/Αρχηγείο Ελληνικής Αστυνομίας"). Applicants have to apply in person - in case of a child under 14, accompanied by a parent - at the local police department. Upon submitting all the requirements (special portrait photo, issuing request and fee), the police department begins the issuing procedure. All passports are manufactured centrally at the N.P.C main building in Athens. Depending on the circumstances, passports are issued in 3 to 9 business days and must be picked up at the police department in which the issuing request was made. For this, an applicant must carry with him a special receipt they received after applying. Standard passports are valid for a period of 5 years for adults and 2 years for children under 14. If one person is between 14 and 17 years old, then the issued passport is valid until that person becomes 18 years old, at which time they must request an adult one.

Greek passports cannot be renewed. A holder has to make a request for a new one, if their passport expires within the next six months of the request and he/she plans to use it after the expiry date.

The issuing of a standard adult passport costs €84.40, while that of a child costs €73.60. Reissuance of an existing and still valid passport with no blank pages is possible, with a validity date equal to the previous passport and a cost of €53.

See also

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