| Serbian passport | |
|---|---|
The front cover of a contemporary Serbian biometric passport | |
Identity page of the Serbian passport | |
| Type | Passport |
| Issued by |  Serbia |
| First issued | 1 July 2008[1] (biometric passport) 13 May 2016[2] (current version) |
| Purpose | Identification |
| Eligibility | Serbian citizenship |
| Expiration | 10 years after acquisition for adults; 5 years if issued to a person between 3 and 14 years of age; 3 years for person under 3 years old |
| Cost | 3600 RSD/~30€[3] |
Serbian passports are issued to Serbian citizens at any age, and it is the primary document of international travel issued by Serbia.
Passports are issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs or, if the citizen resides abroad, at the embassy. Besides serving as proof of identity and of citizenship, they facilitate the process of securing assistance from Serbian consular officials abroad, if needed. Citizens can not have multiple Serbian passports at the same time.
Serbian biometric passports were introduced on 1 July 2008.
Current passports are issued in accordance with the "Law on Travel Documents" from 2007.[4] Serbian passports have a burgundy red cover, in line with the EU standard, and have inscriptions in golden letters - РЕПУБЛИКА СРБИЈА, REPUBLIC OF SERBIA, and RÉPUBLIQUE DE SERBIE,[5] at the top, and ПАСОШ, PASSPORT, and PASSEPORT at the bottom divided by the coat of arms (text in English and French added in 2016). The biometric passport symbol, alerting to the presence of a RFID chip inside the document, is at the very bottom of the cover page. The inside cover features the Serbian coat of arms in navy blue ink, while the first page contains the name of the country and the word "passport" in three languages - Serbian (Cyrillic script), English and French. The inside back cover contains information on consular assistance in the three aforementioned languages.[6]
The Serbian passport includes the following data:
The identity page also contains the RFID chip.
The data page is printed in Serbian (Cyrillic script), English and French, while the personal data is entered in Serbian (Latin script).
The passport contains further 32 pages suitable for visas and border stamps. They feature a range of light colours, predominantly red, green, yellow and blue, and have the Serbian coat of arms in the middle. They are perforated with the passport's serial number on the bottom, and have watermarks with page numbers.
Passports that can be issued are:[7]
Serbian identity cards can be used instead of a passport for travel to some regional countries that have signed special agreements with the Serbian Government. Not all Serbian IDs feature contact-less RFID chips, so some are not fully ICAO9303 compliant biometric travel documents.
| Countries | Stay |
|---|---|
 Albania[9]
|
90 days |
 Bosnia and Herzegovina
|
90 days |
 Kosovo
|
90 days |
 Montenegro
|
30 days |
 North Macedonia
|
90 days |
 Turkey[10]
|
90 days |
|
Main article: Visa requirements for Serbian citizens |
As of 2020, Serbian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 136 countries and territories, ranking the Serbian passport 40th overall in terms of travel freedom according to the Henley Passport Index.[11]
Serbian passport is one of the 5 passports with the most improved rating globally since 2006 in terms of number of countries that its holders may visit without a visa.[12]
Under Serbian law, people born in Kosovo or otherwise legally settled in Kosovo are by law considered Serbian nationals and as such they are entitled to a Serbian passport.[13] However, these passports are not issued by the Serbian Ministry of the Interior. Instead they are issued by the Serbian Coordination Directorate.[14] These particular passports do not allow the holder to enter the Schengen Area without a visa[15] for a stay of less than three months within half a year, while Serbian citizens with passports issued by the Serbian Ministry of the Interior enjoy such a privilege. Bearers of passports issued by the Serbian Coordination Directorate require a Schengen visa for travel to the Schengen area since they are not covered by the Annex II list of countries allowed visa free entry to the Schengen Area. The European Union considered it impossible for Serbia to evaluate the issuing of birth records needed to apply for a passport and the integrity of the procedures applied by Serbia to check the authenticity of documents provided by applicants for that purpose.
