I recently renewed my US passport. Under "Endorsements" on the photo page, the new passport says "SEE PAGE 27". However, page 27 is blank, as are all the other visa/endorsement pages. My previous passport had a similar endorsement, with the endorsement page listing my full legal name (I have middle names which are apparently too long for the photo page). It seems like perhaps they forgot to print this note on the endorsement page in the new passport. Since it seems like it may be a major hassle to get this passport corrected, especially given the notorious backlog that the US passport office is having at present, could I just go ahead and use it as is? Or am I likely to experience serious problems at US or foreign ports of entry (major delays, refusal of entry, or worse) if the immigration officer notices the missing endorsement? Would I need to offer any other explanation besides "it came like that"? (The National Passport Information Center refused to answer this question by email, and their call center is too overloaded to be usable.)
asked Aug 12, 2021 at 19:44 Nate Eldredge Nate Eldredge 37.7k 11 11 gold badges 135 135 silver badges 153 153 bronze badgesHow many characters are your given names, including spaces? Mine are 20, and I've often wondered whether that is the maximum. The 39-character size of the name field in the MRZ could also be the issue, though in theory the name in the MRZ can be truncated if necessary.
Commented Aug 12, 2021 at 20:36@phoog: 25 characters all told, counting spaces. The photo page and MRZ only show my first name and the initial of my first middle name. If my last name is added to that, it comes to 34 characters.
Commented Aug 12, 2021 at 20:47Hm. That's 35 characters for the purpose of the MRZ, because there are two separator characters between the surname and the given names. But 35 is also less than 39. So I suppose the maximum length for given names in the VIZ lies somewhere between 20 and 24.