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I've got a passport from country A, obtained in country B. The "issuing authority" field in the passport says "consul in (City in country B)". I know the passport was produced in A and shipped to B before I got it.

What's the right answer for the question about the "issuing country"? This is often asked when booking international flights.

I always filled in country B and never got any issues or questions, but recently started wondering if that's expected/correct.

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  • See also travel.stackexchange.com/questions/31297/…
    – Relaxed
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 17:09
  • @Relaxed shouldn't it be a duplicate? How is this question different?
    – JonathanReez ♦
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 13:32
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    It gets more confusion when they ask for "Country of issue" which happens too, because that sounds a lot like "Place of Issue". I had the situation where my passport was issued to me in B, was issued by A's ambassador in C (as all passports regionally where processed in C) and the country that issued the passport was A. That passport clearly stated that it was issued by the ambassador in C. I've used both country A and C as "country of issue" without problems, but I think that phoog is correct and I should have put down A.
    – Erwin Bolwidt
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 13:33
  • @JonathanReez Don't know, it does seem very very close but since this one already had an accepted answer and a whole lot of upvote I didn't see a point in closing it anymore. But I wouldn't vote to keep it open either, I just wanted to establish a link.
    – Relaxed
    Commented Aug 10, 2017 at 13:35
  • The issuing country for my Passport is South Sudan
    – George Tadu
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 9:25

3 Answers 3

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The issuing country is the country that issued the passport. The consulate of country A represents country A in country B. Any official act of consular staff is an act of country A. The consular staff issued the passport, so it was issued by country A.

If the airline wanted to know the location where the passport was issued, they'd ask for "place of issue" or the like.

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    @Harper consulates and embassies are not literally the territory of the sending country. This is a common misconception. Diplomatic missions enjoy immunity, but that does not turn them into foreign territory. For example, people born on the grounds of US diplomatic missions are not US citizens by virtue of that fact.
    – phoog
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 17:03
  • In other words, if you are Swiss and in San Francisco, and you take a cable car (more likely the F-Market) to the Swiss consulate where they issue a Swiss passport... You are dealing entirely with the Swiss, and USA or California don't enter into it. Japan will consider it Swiss.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 19:50
  • whoops. I can't edit comments so I rewrote it and am deleting my first.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 19:50
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It's country A, the country that instills authority into the document.

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    Another way to say it is "it is the country that has authority to issue the document."
    – Burhan Khalid
    Commented Aug 9, 2017 at 7:53
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A passport is nothing but citizenship given by the issuing country.

In your case, Country A is the issuing country. Being in country B when you renewed your passport does not make you citizen of Country B. Passport issue/renewal is a very complicated process. In your case Country B is not involved in any of the process of verifying any of your documents, or legality. However the place of issue is Country B/ whatever the city.

So in your case, Country A issued/renewed the passport while you were in country B, so your country of issue is Country A, and place of issue is Country B/whatever the city.

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