Five Nations Passport Group

The Five Nations Passport Group is an international forum for the passport issuing authorities of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States to share best practice in passport issuance, development and administration.

The annual Five Nations Passport Group conference is a largely informal, in-person meeting between officials of the participating authorities, with a number of additional guests, such as the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in 2011. The conference has been held since 2004.

The passport issuing authorities of the member countries have much in common: their passport issuing systems are largely centralised and their service channels are similar. None of the Five Nations has a compulsory identity management system, meaning that citizens’ personal details are not held in a central citizens’ database or register.

Participating passport issuing authorities

The authority taking part in the Five Nations Passport Group for each country is its respective passport issuing authority:

• Australia: the Australian Passport Office
• Canada: Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)
• New Zealand: the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs
• United Kingdom: His Majesty’s Passport Office
• United States: the United States Department of State

Passport specifications

Unlike EU passports, which follow a common format, the passports of the Five Nations have developed through the sharing of best practice and information relating to passport development. All Five Nations passports are, however, biometric and machine-readable, in B7 size (ISO/IEC 7810 ID-3, 88 mm × 125 mm).

In general, holders of Five Nations Passport Group passports have access to one another’s automated border control systems. At present, all Five Nations passport holders have access to the Australian and New Zealand SmartGate systems and to the United Kingdom’s ePassport gates.

Likewise, British passport holders have access to the United States Global Entry programme, while Canadians have access to the NEXUS programme. Australia is also planning to join Global Entry.

Passports in circulation

The numbers of Five Nations Passport Group passports in circulation are as follows:

• Australia: 14,614,941 (2020 figure)
• Canada: 23,790,000 (2018 figure)
• New Zealand: 2,900,000 (2017 figure)
• United Kingdom:
  • British citizens: 51,116,513 (2019 figure)
  • Gibraltar: 2,240 (2019 figure)
  • British (Overseas): 314,779
• United States: 143,116,633 (2020 figure)

Sources

• Australian passport
• New Zealand passport
• British passport
• United States passport
• Canadian passport