Machine readable Colombian passport

[ryna 132]

Does anyone know if you can get a machine readable Colombian passport from within the U.S.? Or, does she have to do that in Colombia? My wife has the old, non-machine readable style but, in order to travel to some places (Bermuda in this case) without a visa (just using the GC/Colombian passport), she'll need a machine readable passport. Does it matter that her current Colombian passport expires in 2020 (meaning she can't renew yet)?

[Mononoke28 135]

Does anyone know if you can get a machine readable Colombian passport from within the U.S.? Or, does she have to do that in Colombia? My wife has the old, non-machine readable style but, in order to travel to some places (Bermuda in this case) without a visa (just using the GC/Colombian passport), she'll need a machine readable passport. Does it matter that her current Colombian passport expires in 2020 (meaning she can't renew yet)?

Colombia has been issuing the new passports for some time now and anyone can get it by making an appointment with their nearest Colombian Consulate, call them to find out if she can get the new one even though her current passport doesn't expire until a much later date. Here is the passport info for the Consulate in Miami:

http://consuladodecolombia.com/pasaportes_fotomec.html

Diana

[ryna 132]

Thanks for the link.

I also remember seeing posters in the airport in Bogotá that said all old-style passports would expire in 2015(?) no matter the stated expiration date, so I'm hoping they'll let her change it to the new style and invalidate the old one ahead of schedule. But, we'll probably end up making the change in Colombia during one of our visits since it is almost 3X more expensive to do so in Miami. In any event, we plan on traveling to Colombia before any other foreign travel so it shouldn't be an issue.

I also saw something interesting that answered a question I had for a while regarding a friend of ours. She was born in Colombia but came to U.S. as a child without any Colombian ID, cedula, etc.- only her (long ago lost) passport. I was worried that she would have trouble entering Colombia (as an American citizen) to attend our Church wedding sometime in the future. It appears that since she received her U.S. citizenship back in the 70's, all she has to do to enter Colombia on her American passport is to show her U.S. passport and her U.S. Certificate of Naturalization dated prior to July 4, 1991. Just guessing, but I'm thinking there must have a change in Colombian law regarding dual-citizenship under the '91 Constitution and different rules apply to those who gained another nationality prior to that date, since it says she must recover her Colombian citizenship if she wants a Colombian passport.

Edited December 8, 2011 by ryna