The Next Generation Passport 2023 || Your Questions Answered

Hey guys, welcome back to Matthew's Travels and Tips. Today's video we're going to talk a little more on the Next Generation Passport. Now I did do a video last year about the Next Generation Passport and, you know, everything that's new about it because it had just come out and a lot of people were confused about why their passport looked a little bit different. Now fortunately, it's been about a year and a few months since they started issuing the and a lot of people may know about it but for those who don't, I'm just going to go in a little more detail from the last video and explain all the differences of the Next Generation Passport, what differences are there between the Next Generation Passport and the old passports which were e-passports and we can go from there. Now this is a Next Generation Passport, got it issued last year. On the outside it looks like a regular passport book, same logo says United States of America, it even has the e-passport chip that's in all passports issued within the last 15 to 20 years. The primary difference between this book and the older ones are the data page, so that's the page that has all your information like your passport number, name, date of birth, all that information. Unlike the old passport where all the pages on the inside were just simply pages, on the Next Generation Passport your data page is actually a hard plastic, it's actually a polycarbonate material that they use to build your data page and it increases security features, it makes it more difficult to counterfeit your passport and it makes it more secure. So everything that they do when it comes to designing these things are all about national security and protecting your information and your data and to ensure that all passports issued are only issued by the Department of State and you know there aren't any fake passports. So another difference between the old passport and new is that they also have laser engraved details on your data page that makes it even more secure as well. So this is all done at the agency and they updated the artwork on the data page as well and as well as the other pages. The artwork is a little bit different from the previously issued passports and this is something they do every 10 to 15 years sometimes when they start issuing new books. But yep, this is the Next Generation Passport. Another thing that you may notice different is on your passport number. Now before, anytime you got a passport book it would have just been a nine-digit numerical passport number. They are now using an alphanumerical passport number system so it would start with a letter followed by a series of numbers. This makes no difference when you're filling out your form, just fill it out the way it's written in the passport, everything's going to be accepted. Now I know many people have the question where they ask, if I have an old e-passport you know issued within like three years ago, do I need to get a new passport? The answer to that is no, the Department of State has stated that all e-passports are still safe, they're secure, they're accepted, you don't have to pay the fee to get a new passport issued until that one expires. So unless you want to get your passport updated and you want to have that new Next Generation Passport, you don't need to go pay that additional fee. You can simply keep what you have, wait for it to expire and then get the Next Generation Passport. There have been no main changes to the passport card however, it's still the same. There isn't any big difference, there's no difference at all, it's still the same passport card. It can be used for travel domestically or if you're crossing the borders into Mexico or Canada by land or sea or if you're going on a cruise. But the Next Generation Passport, that's where they made the big changes and it's actually a pretty nice looking passport, I'm not gonna lie. It feels nice, it feels sturdy, sturdier than the last passport. And yeah, the price is still the same. Prices did go up for passports last year but not because of the Next Generation Passport, that's just an increase that happened with the Department of State. But yeah, there I have it. I'll include a picture of the data page that they have on travel.state.gov in the video. So if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. I'll do my best to try and answer it. If you have any videos you'd like to know about, feel free to comment it as well. And if you have any questions about travel, travel documents, visas, feel free to leave a comment. I'll try and prepare a video to answer all your questions and as always, if this video has been helpful to you, you can do the account a favor and subscribe and hit the like button. It really does help with at least giving me motivation to continue making videos. When you do YouTube part-time, it can get a little hard sometimes, finding the time. But yeah, I really hope this video helped you guys and once again, any questions, feel free to ask. I hope you guys have a great day.