I was entering the US when customs told me the machine couldn’t recognize my passport. Then I noticed the smudge on the MRZ, the one in the image. It is on the end of the first line. All the other numbers are fine. And the chip works fine as well. Is the MRZ of my passport really damaged? Or is it just a machine malfunction?
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1 Answer
You may find that your passport will be rejected by more machines but not by the humans that check the passport on the machine.
It does in no way look like you tried to change anything so it should not give more problems than a short delay.
If border officials tell you to replace the passport as soon as possible it is time to replace it, not before. Only if it is a new passport and you can get it replaced free of cost and with little effort I might consider that, it being a fault in the printing process.
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It’s worth noting that passport scanners need to be able to read the MRZ before they can read some parts of the RFID chip, for validation of biometric data (fingerprints, face recognition…). So e-gates probably won’t be usable and even at manned positions it will probably cause a delay or further issues.– jcaronCommented Dec 26, 2022 at 10:59
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2@jcaron chip readers can read the chip if the necessary data (passport number and expiration date; bearer's date of birth) are typed in manually. So yes, if an officer's scanner can't read the MRZ it will cause a delay, but not a terribly long one.– phoogCommented Dec 27, 2022 at 9:46