2025 Stocktaking Report: Machine
Readable Travel Documents for Refugees
and Stateless Persons
August 2025
This report presents UNHCR’s analysis of State practice in relation to the issuance of travel documents
to refugees and stateless persons on their territory.
1. Legal background
The issuance of a travel document is an obligation for States parties to the 1951 Convention relating
to the Status of Refugees and/or its 1967 Protocol (“1951 Refugee Convention”)1 and the 1954
Statelessness Convention under Article 28, with additional criteria and requirements provided in the
Conventions’ Schedule and Specimen sections, as well as Article 6 of the 1969 OAU Convention.
Through the examination of current practices, the report aims to take stock of how the States parties
to the 1951 and 1954 Conventions implement these commitments, shedding light on current gaps that
need to be addressed.
Furthermore, UNHCR’s Executive Committee (conclusion no. 13, 1978) expresses the hope that “States
which are not parties to the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol will issue to refugees lawfully
residing in their territory appropriate travel documents under conditions as similar as possible to those
attaching to the issue of 1951 Convention Travel Documents” and (conclusion no. 117, 2024) calls upon
States, in cooperation with UNHCR and with funding support from the international community, for
the “issuance of machine-readable travel documents to enable refugees to pursue complementary
pathways and durable solutions in ways that ensure protection from refoulement.”
Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights outlines that “everyone has the right to
leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country”, which in practice requires a travel
document.
The Convention on International Civil Aviation under Standard 3.112 in its Annex 9 on Facilitation
requires that travel documents issued to refugees are machine readable. This Standard was
introduced in 2016 and emphasized under UNHCR’s Executive Committee conclusion no. 114 (2017).
In 2024–2025, the Standard was amended3 towards wider inclusivity of all 193 International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO) Member States: the reference to “Convention Travel Documents” in the
Standard’s main text was amended and shifted into the accompanying note to utilize the broader term
of “travel documents for refugees and stateless persons”.
2. Scope and data of the report
According to the obligations of the above international treaties and UNHCR Executive Committee
conclusions, the report will examine the practices from the States parties to the 1951 and 1954
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Article 28: “The Contracting States shall issue to refugees [or stateless persons] lawfully staying in their territory travel
documents for the purpose of travel outside their territory, unless compelling reasons of national security or public order
otherwise require, and the provisions of the Schedule to this Convention shall apply with respect to such documents.
The Contracting States may issue such a travel document to any other refugee [or stateless person] in their territory; they
shall in particular give sympathetic consideration to the issue of such a travel document to refugees [or stateless persons]
in their territory who are unable to obtain a travel document from the country of their lawful residence.”
Standard 3.11 in Annex 9, 17th Edition, Amendment 30, was 3.12 in earlier editions.
Standard 3.11: “Contracting States shall ensure that travel documents for refugees and stateless persons are machine
readable, in accordance with the specifications of Doc 9303.”
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