Date of Birth Place of Birth (see below) Sex (M, F or X) Date of Issue Date of Expiration Authority (United States Department of State) Endorsements The machine-readable zone is present at the bottom of the page. A signature page has a line for the signature of a passport holder. A passport is not valid until it is signed by the passport holder in black or blue ink. If a holder is unable to sign his passport, it is to be signed by a person who has legal authority to sign on the holder's behalf. In June 2021, the Department of State announced that it would be starting a process to allow for a third gender on passports, as well as allowing applicants to self-select male or female on their passport applications instead of submitting medical certificates for a change of gender. Place of birth Place of birth was first added to U.S. passports in 1917. The standards for the names of places of birth that appear in passports are listed in volume 8 of the Foreign Affairs Manual, published by the Department of State. A request to list no place of birth in a passport is never accepted. U.S. birthplaces For birthplaces within the United States and its territories, it contains the name of the state or territory followed by "U.S.A." (e.g. Wisconsin, U.S.A), except for the U.S. Virgin Islands and American Samoa which are listed alone. For persons born in Washington State or the District of Columbia, passports indicate "Washington, U.S.A." or "Washington, D.C., U.S.A.", respectively, as the place of birth. Foreign birthplaces For Americans whose place of birth is located outside the United States, only the country or dependent territory is mentioned. The name of the country is the current name of the country that is presently in control of the territory of the place of birth and thus changes upon a change of a country name. For example, Americans born before 1991 in the former Soviet Union (including the Baltic states, whose annexation by the Soviet Union was never recognized by the U.S.) would have the post-Soviet country name listed as the place of birth, e.g. Armenia instead of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. Another example is that for Americans born in the former Panama Canal Zone, "Panama" is listed as the place of birth for people born on or after October 1, 1979;