Germany has officially recognized the new version of the Vietnamese passport, which has been added with birthplace information, and thereby resumed issuing C multi-year visas to Vietnamese applicants, the German Embassy in Vietnam has announced.

In a notice on its website on Thursday, the embassy said Vietnamese passports that have been issued from January 1, 2023 and containing the place of birth on the personal information page are accepted.

This means that the agency will continue issuing category C visas for multi-year residence (Schengen visa), which has temporarily suspended since late July last year pending such recognition, the notice said.

Type C visa allows its holders to enter any of the 26 Schengen countries and to move between these countries without any additional entry procedures.

The embassy also stated that Vietnamese passports that were issued between January 7 and December 31, 2022 without stating the birthplace on the data page will be recognized until their expiry date, provided the birthplace information is added to the note section of the passports. 

On July 1 last year, Vietnam adopted the new version of passports without stating the birthplace information in replacement for old-version visas that show such data. 

Late in the same month, Germany was the first country of the 26-nation Schengen bloc to temporarily not issue visas based on Vietnam’s new passport version due to the lack of birthplace information.

Some other Schengen countries later made the same decision as Germany while the  U.S. requested visa applicants to show birthplace certificates for interviews.

After some working sessions between Vietnamese and German authorities, Germany has since mid-August resumed granting visas, except category C ones, to holders of Vietnamese passports with birthplace information added to the appendix.

In mid-November last year, the Vietnamese National Assembly agreed to include birthplace into the page of personal details of passports, and all passports issued as from January 1 contain such information.

Currently, the Ministry of Public Security and the Vietnamese diplomatic missions are prepared to issue e-passports containing microchips for Vietnamese citizens from March 1.

Attached to the back cover of the passport, a microchip provides the holder's personal information, identification photo, fingerprint scans, and digital signature.

More than 100 countries and territories are using such e-passports.

Passports without a chip can still be used until the expiry date, and are not required to be changed to the electronic type.

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