The new passports of Việt Nam with navy blue covers. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The United States authorities have required that all visa applicants from Việt Nam with new navy blue-covered passports must include a place of birth (locality/city) certificate, known as an endorsement, before their interview beginning October 3.

According to a notice from the US Embassy in Việt Nam, applicants who do not have a place of birth endorsement in their blue cover passports will not be permitted to interview and will need to reschedule their appointments.

“After thorough review, the Department of State determined that for visa application purposes, the new Việt Nam passport, issued starting July 1, 2022, which does not contain a birthplace, must include a Việt Nam Government endorsement page that states place of birth information,” the embassy noted.

“We urge all individuals with upcoming appointments already scheduled to get the endorsement prior to their appointment. Recognizing the inconvenience this presents, we will continue to interview applicants whose passports lack the endorsement through September 29,” the embassy said.

Previously, since August, three countries – Germany, Czech, and Spain – have announced their decisions to suspend recognition of Vietnamese new passports, also due to the omission of place of birth information.

Spain and Germany have since then said they would accept the new passports, on the condition that the place of birth information is added to the documents.

Minister of Public Security Tô Lâm in a questioning session at the National Assembly said in the short term, the supplementation of place of birth as an appendix to the passports could be done free-of-charge at the request of citizens to facilitate travels.

In the long term, the passport forms would be modified to accommodate the place of birth field of information, he said.

The ministry was collecting opinions from relevant authorities – including the National Assembly Legal Committee, the National Assembly Defence and Security Committee, Government Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – on the issue, Tô Lâm said. — VNS