If you are a citizen of Switzerland (either born or naturalised) and use your Swiss passport for travel, there is one important thing to know to avoid problems when crossing borders.
If you travelling within the Schengen area — that is, 25 European Union member states and three EFTA nations (Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein) – then you don’t need your passport at all.
It is sufficient to have your official identity card to enter any of these states and return to Switzerland afterwards.
However, if your travel plans include third countries, especially ones for which an entry visa is required (and that includes ESTA for the United States), an ID card alone will not suffice.
You will need your Swiss biometric passport for travel outside the EU/EFTA.
In cases when you need to request a visa or register online with the airline, you will need to provide all the details included in your passport: your name, date of birth, the passport’s expiration date, as well as its number.
That sounds simple enough, but in case of a Swiss passport, it isn’t.
Deciphering the number
Say, for example, that your passport number is S0A00A00.
Yes, but is this a letter ‘o’ or number ‘zero’?
Mistaking one for the other can cause a problem upon your arrival in a foreign country, assuming the error is spotted before or during the passport control process and, depending on how friendly (or not) the country is toward Switzerland, this mistake can land you in trouble.
You can be denied entry, for instance, and be sent back to Switzerland with the next flight.
There are no official statistics about whether this has actually happened (that is, refusal of entry due to the incorrectly declared passport numbers), or how many times.
But the confusion about the numbers must be widespread enough for the Federal Police (FedPol) to address this issue.
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What do they say?
“The letters O (Oscar) and I (India) are not used in identity card or Swiss passport numbers,” the message on their website indicates. “The number 0 (zero) contains a dot in the centre,” like this:
Screenshot Fedpol
“Please bear this in mind when entering your identity card number – for instance, when booking flights.”
Also keep in mind that this a rule for Swiss passports.
If you travel with a foreign one, find out from the passport-issuing authority in your country whether both a letter ‘o’ and number ‘zero’ are used and, if so, how to distinguish between them.
