Tanzanian passport

The Immigration Department falls under the Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs (In Kiswahili: Wizara ya Mambo ya Ndani ya Nchi). This passport is issued only to the citizens of Tanzania. There are three types of Passports, which are Ordinary, Service and Diplomatic.

As of January 2018, Tanzania began issuing the new East African format ePassport, in line with the East African Community integration plans.

Features of the Tanzanian ePassport;;

• –Electronic chip holding the same information as the old model passport
• –Enhanced Security features.
• –Biometric identifier
• –Digital photograph of the passport holder

The new ePassport is issued under different colours for Ordinary (navy blue), Diplomatic (red) and Service (green). The new ePassport has been made available to all Tanzanians seeking passports for international travel from January 2018.

The old ordinary passport was in use until January 2020 when it was officially retired.

History

Before issuing the new ePassports, the Passport Control Authority of Tanzania used to issue machine-readable passports. The previous model before the machine readable version, was designed in the 1970s, before computer technology became widely available, hence the holder's data was typewritten or even handwritten on it.

In contrast to the current ePassports, the previous ordinary Tanzanian passport was green in colour, while the Diplomatic Passport was Black and Service Passport was blue. The new Tanzanian ePassport complies with the ICAO standards. When the passport was first issued, the holder's fingerprints, signature and photograph would be digitally acquired and stored in a database, but only the holder's digital picture was coded in the physical passport, in a two-dimensional barcode. The latter, as well as the holder's personal identification data and his or her picture are directly laser-printed on the passport.