Uruguayan passport (Spanish: Pasaporte uruguayo) is an identity document issued to Uruguayan citizens to travel outside Uruguay. For traveling in Mercosur countries, as well as Chile and Bolivia, Uruguayan citizens may use their ID card.[1]. For naturalised legal citizens, the nationality of origin will still apply as Uruguayan nationality law currently doesn't give nationality to naturalised citizens, which may mean a visa may still required when travelling. This challenge appears to arise from a literal interpretation from the ICAO 9303 part 3 manual, which in its Spanish translation, uses the word nationality rather than the original English version which refers to citizenship in the case of the country code that applies in the machine readable zone. Paragraph 7.1 of ICAO 9303 part 3 notes that an error to avoid is "MRZ citizenship incorrectly reports the country of birth rather than citizenship.". Uruguay's national identity authority uses country of birth in lieu of nationality for naturalised citizens, leading to error responses on migratory and airline legal identity checks. In this context, currently Francia and Switzerland don't recognise as valid Uruguayan passports issued for legal citizens (see Switzerland visa requirements), requiring them to obtain a passport of their country of origin to be able to travel to these countries. The irregularities around Uruguayan passports issued to legal citizen are causing a limitation to the human rights of identity and mobility which reached the attention of the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights.
The Uruguayan Ministry of the Interior has issued the biometric passport to Uruguayan citizens since 16 October 2015. The new passport complies with the standards set forth by the Visa Waiver Program of the United States and international standards agreed at ICAO, with the exception of naturalised citizens as covers above. Standard processing time is 20 business days; however, 48-hour urgent processing is available for a higher fee.[1]
According to the Henley passport index 2023, Uruguayan nationals had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 153 countries and territories, ranking the Uruguayan passport 28th in terms of travel freedom according to the Henley Passport Index.[2]
Uruguay
