How passports are made
The chip in a US passport sits behind a wire mesh in the cover, so it cannot be read until the book is opened.
- stations
- 8
- things upstream
- 85
- raw sources
- 24
- steps from the ground
- 9
The short version
A modern passport is a sewn booklet of watermarked security paper wrapped around one stiff polycarbonate page that hides an RFID chip and antenna. Blank books are printed with special inks and finished in one plant, then shipped to a separate center where a laser writes the holder's photo and details into the plastic and the chip is loaded with a signed copy of the same data.
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Print the visa pages
Sheets of watermarked security paper run through presses that lay down fine background artwork. The inks include some that glow under ultraviolet light and some that change color as the page tilts. British Series B pages carried a portrait of Shakespeare as a watermark in every sheet.
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Raise the tactile designs
Parts of the artwork are printed so they stand up from the page and can be felt with a fingertip. Intaglio printing gives very sharp raised lines that ordinary presses cannot copy, and it can hide latent images that only show at a shallow angle.
Goes in -
Seal the chip in polycarbonate
The data page is a rigid card of polycarbonate with the RFID chip and its antenna embedded inside. Sealed in plastic, the chip is protected from water and bending. The newest British books also build a decoding lens into this page, which unscrambles a hidden image elsewhere in the book.
Goes in -
Line the cover with mesh
In US passports a thin wire mesh is built into the cover. When the book is shut, the mesh acts as a Faraday cage and blocks the radio signal a reader needs to talk to the chip.
Goes in -
Stitch the booklet
Visa pages, the data page and the cover are gathered into one book and bound at the spine. The current standard US book has 26 pages, two fewer than before, because the endorsement and signature pages were merged into one.
Goes in -
Perforate the book number
A laser burns the passport number through the pages as a line of tiny holes. On the next-generation US book the holes get progressively smaller from page to page, which is very hard to fake.
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Laser-write the holder's details
Finished blanks travel to a personalization center. British blanks, for example, are made in Tczew, Poland, and only get their owner's name, photo and dates once they reach the UK. A laser marks those details into the polycarbonate page, so there is no ink on the surface to scrape off.
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Load and sign the chip
The chip receives a copy of the printed data and the photo, all signed with a digital certificate. Any change to the data breaks the signature, and border readers reject it. A US passport chip holds 64 kilobytes.
64 kilobytes
Worth repeating
- Every page of the UK's Series B passport carried a hidden portrait of William Shakespeare as a watermark.
- Blank British passports are made in Tczew, Poland, and are personalized only after they arrive in the UK.
- As of July 2024, more than 150 jurisdictions issued passports with an embedded chip.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and passport starts as these 24 raw sources.
Everything it is made of See it on the map
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Keep walking
Sources
These sources say little about the factory steps themselves, so parts of this line are a general description. Treat the details with care, and tell us if you know better.
Cite this page: "How passports are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/passport