United States passport

Trade Minister Ömer Bolat dismissed recent allegations of expanding the scope of Türkiye's special passport, known as the "green passport," which facilitates visa-free travel abroad, to encompass new professional groups.

Effective June 5, 2022, the US Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria is accepting online fee payments for certain adult US passport renewal applications. Paying online allows you to send your application via courier service to the U.S. Embassy without the need to apply in person. Please see the Embassy's Passport Renewal page to determine if you are eligible for online fee payment.

Although only a small extra box to fill in gender, this is a huge step for D. Ojeda, a gender-neutral person who became one of the first Americans to apply for a gender-neutral passport.

"My family still doesn't understand what I'm doing," said Ojeda, a 34-year-old activist named D. who uses the pronouns "them, them" for themself.

Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom have told citizens not to approach the airport, and those who are already at and around the airport are advised to leave the area immediately, world media report. The deadline for foreigners to leave Afghanistan is also expiring.

The United States introduces visa restrictions for pregnant women. The measure aims at restricting "birth tourism," in which women travel to the United States to give birth so their children can have U.S. citizenship. 

Women applying for a tourist visa will be denied if consular officials deem that they want to go to the US to give birth.

The passports of the Bulgarian citizens will be issued with a term of validity of 5 or 10 years according to the requested deadline. This was decided by the Parliament with the adoption of the second reading of amendments to the Law for the Bulgarian personal documents. Children under the age of 18 will be issued passports with a validity period of 5 years.

The Cyprus government has issued strict guidelines aimed at curbing the overt promotion of passports, censuring agencies that explicitly try to lure rich foreign nationals for enrollment in the citizenship-by-investment program.

Last May, agents of US intelligence were on the streets of Athens trying to find Arab origin people who were related to Islamic State and could have been a threat to the security of their country.

The ongoing political and economic volatility in Greece, especially after the announcement of the referendum 3 weeks ago by Greek PM Alxis Tsipras, has seen the number of citizens filing requests for new passports and renewing their old ones double, according to Greek police authorities.