Panamanian passports are issued to Panamanian citizens to travel outside of Panama

Panama

Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

. Panamanian citizens enjoy visa-free access to approximately 100 countries and territories. Each passport's data page has a machine readable zone

Machine-readable passport

A Machine Readable Passport is a travel document where the data on the identity page is encoded in optical character recognition format. Many countries began to issue machine readable travel documents in the 1980s....

, a barcode

Barcode

A barcode is an optical machine-readable representation of data, which shows data about the object to which it attaches. Originally barcodes represented data by varying the widths and spacings of parallel lines, and may be referred to as linear or 1 dimensional . Later they evolved into rectangles,...

, a digital picture of the holder and the following information in Spanish and English:

• Type
• Country code
  ISO 3166-1 alpha-3
  ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes are three-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization , to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest...
  
  
• Passport number
• Surname
• Given names
• Place of birth
• Issuing office
• Date of birth
• ID number
• Sex
• Nationality
• Date of issue
• Date of expiry

Passport message

All passports contain the following message:

In Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

:

El gobierno de la República de Panamá solicita a quien concierna, todas las atenciones que se requieren para el portador de este pasaporte, si necesita asistencia o protección fuera del territorio Nacional.

In English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

:

The government of the Republic of Panama, requests to whom it may concern, all the possible attentions that may be required to the bearer of this passport, if any assistance or protection is needed outside the National territory.

Pavlo Lazarenko scandal

In 1998 Pavlo Lazarenko

Pavlo Lazarenko

Pavlo Ivanovych Lazarenko is a former Ukrainian politician and former Prime Minister who, in August 2006, was convicted and sentenced to prison in the United States for money laundering, wire fraud and extortion...

, the former Prime minister of Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 was arrested as he tried to enter Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. He was found to be carrying an apparently valid Panamanian passport, although Ukrainian citizenship did not permit dual nationality.

Sources

• Council
  Council of the European Union
  The Council of the European Union is the institution in the legislature of the European Union representing the executives of member states, the other legislative body being the European Parliament. The Council is composed of twenty-seven national ministers...
  
   regulation
  European Union regulation
  A regulation is a legislative act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into national law...
  
   539/2001 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:2001R0539:20050624:EN:PDF
• Council
  Council of the European Union
  The Council of the European Union is the institution in the legislature of the European Union representing the executives of member states, the other legislative body being the European Parliament. The Council is composed of twenty-seven national ministers...
  
   regulation
  European Union regulation
  A regulation is a legislative act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into national law...
  
   1932/2006 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:029:0010:0013:EN:PDF
• Council
  Council of the European Union
  The Council of the European Union is the institution in the legislature of the European Union representing the executives of member states, the other legislative body being the European Parliament. The Council is composed of twenty-seven national ministers...
  
   regulation
  European Union regulation
  A regulation is a legislative act of the European Union that becomes immediately enforceable as law in all member states simultaneously. Regulations can be distinguished from directives which, at least in principle, need to be transposed into national law...
  
  539/2001 consolidated version, 19.1.2007 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/consleg/2001/R/02001R0539-20070119-en.pdf
• List of nationals who do need a visa to visit the UK http://www.ukvisas.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1020786334922.
• List of countries whose passport holders do not require visas to enter Ireland http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/moving-country/moving-to-ireland/coming-to-live-in-ireland/visa-requirements-for-entering-ireland.
• Embassy of Panama in Washington D.C. http://www.embassyofpanama.org
• See also http://www.embassyofpanama.org/cms/registry2.php for Canal Zone registry.
• Panama's Immigration and Naturalization Department http://www.migracion.gob.pa
• List of countries whose passport holders do and do not need visas to travel to Panama http://www.embassyofpanama.org/pdf/consulate_documents/clasificacion_de_visas.pdf from the Embassy of Panama in Washington D.C.
• See also http://www.mire.gob.pa Panama's foreign affairs ministry. (Spanish page only)
• For Passport applications and procedures http://www.gobiernoyjusticia.gob.pa Panama's government and justice ministry (Spanish page only)
• Panama Passport Agency (Spanish page only) http://www.pasaporteordinario.gob.pa/