Passport card

Yes, but it's a US ID, and therefore is not considered a valid ID in Italy since you cannot use it to get into the country. Legally you should be carrying your passport.

I believe their definition of an official ID is one with your picture on it. Does the passport card have your picture on it?

Yes, it has my picture but it has a different number than my passport. I had to send in all my information to get my passport and passport card at the same time.

Technically you’re supposed to be carrying the passport. It’s hard to imagine a scenario if you’re not crossing a border that not having it at the ready would cause a huge problem. Carrying the card around in casual circumstances like this is what I use it for. I was at one tourist site where lacking other ID I had to leave my passport at the ticket desk, and did not enjoy the feeling.

I had read non EU residents must carry passport but EU residents need to carry a government issued ID that has your picture on it like a drivers license.

Here we go. Yes, I carry. No, I don't. I have never understood the extended discussion about the simple act of carrying a passport. I carry mine in the shower. Cannot be too careful as to when you might be asked to produce it. Seriously, I carry it all the time in either a secure shirt pocket or a hidden pants pocket and sometimes the money belt depending on where we are going.. Much like I always carry by driver license in the US. Actually the passport contains less information than your drivers license. The passport card is worthless beyond US border crossing. The last thing I check out the door is having my passport.

The passport card won't be accepted. Carry the passport itself with you. I do. I didn't choose the passport card option.

It's not just about showing a photo of you. A passport identifies you as being in the country legally. Just because the US issues those cards as a convenience, it doesnt obligate other countries to accept them. You might get away with it, but it's not a substitute. Drivers Licenses as an official ID is a US thing since we don't have a national ID card.

You are required by law to carry your passport
I don’t get why this is such an issue for some
It is the most important thing you have while traveling abroad-why would you let it out of your sight?

Dozens of discussions
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&date_range=1y&filter=Travel+Forum&query=Passport+&utf8=%E2%9C%93

Here's the deal. You are required to carry your passport on you. You will see from past discussions that some people carry a photocopy and insist this is good enough. Some might try the Passport Card.

If you are stopped, and asked to show ID, and offer something besides the passport, it is up to the officer to accept it. Maybe he wil. If he doesn't, you will be taken to their station, questioned, probably fined, and then have to return with your passport. A true waste of time.

It seems there are so many people who have the attitude "I'm not going to follow the law and no one is going to make me."

Just carry the passport. I put mine in my moneybelt and forget about it. It's there if I need it.

BTW, the passport card is a courtesy allowing you to enter the US from land and sea borders. By air you need a passport. It's also a REAL ID that you will be required by TSA to have starting in May to go through US airport security.

It won't satisfy the law requirements. For that you need to carry the real passport.

However the risks of needing to show a passport are low, so it is up to you if you want to take that risk. If you do. make sure you have a photo of the real passport also. I don't know if nowadays the EU stamps US passports when you enter or if everything is done digitally, I must use my EU passport by law to enter the EU, so I don't even show my US passport at the border/immigration.

In any case, if you are willing to take that risk, I recommend that if you have the real passport with you if you drive, because random police checks of motorists (for any reason, not necessarily because of a traffic infraction) are extremely common. Also you should have a passport with you if you plan to take a short trip outside of the city where you are staying. For example if you are in Florence and plan to take a day trip to Siena, carry a passport with you. In case you really need a passport, one thing is to be just a 5 min walk from the hotel and retrieve it, another thing is to be a couple of hours away.

Roberto, related question since you have long established your responses as extremely credible. Would a passport card issued by another EU country (Ireland) suffice?

Just to follow up on Frank's point, "government officials" whoever they might be have quite a bit of latitude when enforcing laws and regulations. They will all have to accept a passport as official, anything else is up to their discretion, mood, training, etc. Why risk it?

And supposing you're hit by a bus and rushed to the hospital unable to speak, your passport informs everyone immediately to call the embassy.

@ Archimedes from Fairfax (maybe formerly from Syracuse)

Yes, if you are an Irish citizen you can travel to any EU country with either a passport or a passport card. You don't even need the full passport to enter Italy let alone walk around town. The passport card will do.

In CA the "Real ID" issued by the DMV goes into effect on 7 May 2025....finally. I received it exactly 2 weeks after I applied for it in Jan. at the DMV in SF.

If you fly domestically , you will have to produce that at check-in provided you don't want to carry your passport with you.

Carrying the passport out and about is a nuisance to be sure on hot days. Whether it's required of me, I do that anyway in Europe.

At the risk of going off the rails here let me note that an enhanced driver's license or passport are not the only acceptable form of identification for US domestic air travel. The US passport card, DHS trusted traveler cards (Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI, FAST)
U.S. Department of Defense ID, including IDs issued to dependents, Permanent resident card, Border crossing card,
An acceptable photo ID issued by a federally recognized Tribal Nation/Indian Tribe, including Enhanced Tribal Cards and others will get you past TSA.

Put your passport in a small ziploc bag.
Wrap that in a slice of paper towel to absorb sweat or rain.
Put it in your underclothing moneybelt, with the pouch part in the small of your back.
You can’t even feel it.

Best to comply with the country’s laws when you are a visitor.

Depends on where you are and who is asking. Last time in Sicily we were asked to produce them in the Mazara del Vallo train station. We didn’t have them, but the police were happy to accept a Virginia driver’s license. It’s a crap shoot. Guess it depends upon how risk-adverse you are.

There are those reluctant to carry the passport when out and about in Europe, even when that sort of behaviour is in accordance with the local law. It's understandable. Whether I can agree with with this reluctance or resistance to having the passport on one's person is immaterial. The basic question is what are you afraid of? Why should the local authorities accept the Passport Card so that it's beneficial to you as a tourist?

Taking the usual precautions suffices. I do that and am not concerned now about getting picked or losing it, or whatever as a result of my own stupidity, etc, etc. It has never happened and not going to happen.

Admittedly, I used to be much more concerned, simply not worth the energy.

I actually understand the reluctance to carry your passport with you and rather keep it safe in the hotel safe. A Passport book is bulkier than a card and if you lose it or have it stolen overseas it’s a HUGE hassle. Some people might tell you that it takes you only a few hours to go to the US consulate and have it replaced. The problem is that US consulates are only in Rome, Naples, Florence and Milan, and if you are far from those locations it won’t be that easy or quick to have it replaced.

I don’t carry it with me. In the EU I can use my Italian Identity Card but I also didn’t carry it in Buenos Aires and Montevideo last month. I left the passport at the hotel, and carried a photo of my passport with my California drivers’ license and took a chance. If you plan to do the same, take photos of your real passport along with your passport ID card and driver’s license. I know it may not be what the law requires, but if a Policeman or Carabiniere asks for ID he’s not going to arrest you in handcuffs if you don’t have one, but can produce the photos and the one ID. The procedure would require him to take you to the police station and try to identify you and you immigration status, and that is way too much work for an Italian law enforcement officer, especially on a hot day, considering that the aforementioned ID you have is probably sufficient to convince the officer you are an American tourist visiting Italy and not an illegal alien arrived by boat to Lampedusa.

Roberto da Firenze,
Thank you. I travel frequently and I try to never carry my passport while sightseeing. Of course, I do while traveling. I am wary about carrying one, because my friends had their money belt taken off their body while in Central America. It is such a hassle to lose your passport! I have been reading in Rome they stop you to prove you have it, I haven’t had any experiences like this. Since I’ll be in Rome, I want to carry ID, but not necessarily my passport if I don’t have to.

I've never been asked to show documents by a policeman while walking in the streets in Italy. Not while living in Italy the first half of my life, not while visiting there every year my second half.

Many years ago, on the train from Florence to Bologna, a policeman was about to ask my wife. I noticed he called a colleague of his pointing at my wife. My wife is black so they probably thought she was an African migrant, maybe undocumented. He was about to ask her for documents (my wife didn't even notice the whole thing), but at that moment she was rearranging her purse, and in the process she pulled out her US passport. The agent saw the passport from the distance, realized it was a US passport, so he stopped, waived his colleague away as to say "never mind" and walked away. My wife has become an Italian citizen through marriage years ago, so now she travels with the Italian ID card like me, but she was never asked to show documents, and that funny episode on the train, maybe over 30 years ago, is the only instance she might have been asked to show documents.

So, although the law requires for a non EU citizen to have a passport, the probability a policeman will ask you to show one are not very high. It's a risk of course, but if you are able to show you are a US citizen, even in the unlikely event you are asked to show one, they will probably let you go without problems. They might give you a little lecture, but all you have to do is tell them you are afraid to carry it with you, because you've been told there are a lot of pickpockets in Italy and Italian policemen don't do anything about it because it's too much work and Italian policemen are lazy (just kidding, don't tell them that, although it's true).

You will need to have your real passport with you to check in your hotel, to drive a rental car (high chance of traffic stops in Italy), and of course to enter the EU. Also carry it if you intend to go far from your hotel, like on a day trip by train. They have random anti-terrorist checks on trains sometimes, especially between Florence and Bologna, where terrorists used to like to place bombs in the 70s' and 80s (there are 50 miles of railroad tunnel there, so terrorists targeted that line a lot).

I actually have been asked to show my passport to police in Italy.
My travel friend and I are very ordinary looking middle aged women…..not too suspicious!
In 2015, our small tour van was stopped on a mountain road in the Dolomites and everyone on board had to show their passports.
In 2006 in Perugia in the main square one night….they were the Guardia Finanza section.
And last October in the train station in Lecce, we were stopped and passports examined.

Just carry the darn thing….saves hassle.

I’m so paranoid that I keep my ID, passport, credit card(s), and cash on my body (in pockets) when on a plane. Seen the footage of folks evacuating a plane in an emergency? You aren’t supposed to take the time to grab anything in emergency situations. I can’t imagine exiting a plane and leaving those things behind. I’m sure there are folks to assist passengers who are in such situations but sure seems smart to have those items on one’s body just in case. I’m not going to walk around a foreign country without those bare necessities on me either! You never know……

Not only on the ground, but underwater.

It's also important that you keep your passport on you while scuba diving or water skiing.

You may not know this but the Carabinieri have a scuba diving division and the mission for which they are trained is to catch Americans scuba diving and snorkeling without passport in the Italian territorial sea waters.

https://images.app.goo.gl/UQBCugEXNe7vQjXN9

If you see this emblem, go for your passport
https://images.app.goo.gl/NUEzkUMS7vcUwSBY8

I was stopped by uniformed men (police or military, I don't know) when I took photos of some interesting metal work on the sidewalk in Istanbul, near the presidential palace. There was no prohibition posted, and you couldn't even see the palace from the sidewalk; there was basically just a wall. But there was clearly a rule I had violated. The first thing the guys asked for was my passport. I was very happy to be carrying it. They asked me some questions (in English, but they couldn't really understand my answers), then ran my passport through some sort of database before letting me go, after deleting a bunch of photos from my cellphone. I think it's clear that if I hadn't been carrying my passport, the least that would have happened would have been an accompanied trip back to my hotel, many miles away. That would have wasted the time of one or more officials, who would surely not have been happy and could easily have chosen to make me unhappy.

Not having your passport with you is a risk. No doubt. You could be stopped and asked to show it by a carabiniere and end up in a prison in Istanbul.

So you have to weigh that risk against the risk of losing it or having it stolen in the streets of Rome, or the inconvenience of having a bulky booklet stuck in your underwear. Pick your poison.

Yes, Kathy, I'm aware of the question in the post. Pardon me for switching to a different, yet similar, concern about carrying one's passport.

Gotcha, goanywhere, Post deleted. :O)

Oyvey. Do people not read the rules and regulations and the difference regarding passport cards and passports? Passports are for international travel and identification passport cards are for travel to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean, PERIOD. The psssport card IS NOT valid for travel or identification purposes outside of NORTH AMERICA and the Caribbean. If you’re unaware of what countries make up North America, they’re Canada, Mexico, the USA, hence, only passport for international ID. Passport must be carried on ones person at all times in Italy. Even though. I’m married to an Italian and have had a permesso di soggiorno and a Carta d’identità in the past, I still carry my passport with me everywhere I go in Italy after 25 years of traveling there. Don’t be that stupid tourist.

To the original poster’s question, I don’t think there’s any point messing with a “passport card”. If you want to keep the passport book locked in the hotel safe then carry a photocopy of the picture page and a US driver’s license. And if you’re driving carry the IDP too.

Over 50 years of traveling in Europe, 10 countries total, 2 of them commie countries in the Soviet bloc in the 1970s and '80s, I have NEVER been stopped by any personnel, police or military, in the streets to produce the passport. I had the passport on me anyway, obviously, but "they" don't know that.

However, I have seen others stopped. That sort of encounter with the "law" I've escaped.

But what does that prove? Absolutely nothing except you have been fortunate not to be stopped. In the same fifty plus years of travel we were stopped at a road block in Turkey and riding in a public bus on express way in Germany when two squad cars pulled the bus over and checked everyone's passport and removed one person. Once in the Paris airport about to exit when suddenly lots of well armed soldiers begins controlling the crowd. Slowly release as each passport was checked. And a similar situation in a public square in Rome when it was suddenly surround by police or military, pushed into a corner, with demands to see passports. It happens. I always have it.

The issue is not how many times one may have been asked to produce a passport or ID while walking in the streets of an Italian city, but what happens in real life if you don't have it and yet you are still able to produce a driver's license, a US passport card, and a photocopy of your passport in lieu of the real passport, and you explain to the officer that you left the real thing in the hotel safe for fear of pickpockets or that you left it with the hotel desk during the check in.

Did they arrest you and fine you? Or did they accept what you produced and let you go?

The letter of the law says the following (art. 6 (3^) Title II c. 1 of the T.U. Immigration):

The foreigner who, at the request of public security officials and agents, does not comply, without justified reason, with the order to produce his passport or other identification document and his residence permit or other document attesting his regular presence in the territory of the State is punished with arrest for up to one year and with a fine of up to 2,000 euro.

without justified reason

I a guessing. "I decided I didn't want to obey the law" isn't a justified reason?

I was stopped by uniformed men (police or military, I don't know) when
I took photos of some interesting metal work on the sidewalk in
Istanbul, near the presidential palace.

I would suggest that if you are going to Turkey that you delete your RS browsing history and any reference to Acraven before landing.

No, I was never in Turkey so being stopped in that country is immaterial. That you were stopped in Germany, where I have seen others stopped , one time in Hannover in 1987, ( I remember that one), Paris and Rome, shows being stopped may be just whimsical.

I don't consider it fortunate at all not being stopped. I was in East Berlin solo (maybe that's the reason for not being stopped) in Aug. 1989 where close to the "border area" ie, the last spot permitted near the Wall , swamped with uniformed East German police, still I was not stopped and randomly checked if I had the visa and passport on me.

I have been in Italy for just under two weeks and have been asked for my passport at every railway station I’ve used. That’s Rome Termini once, Orvieto once and Orte twice. In each case a group of 3 or 4 police checked everyone on the platform. My Italian isn’t good enough for me to ask but it seemed like they were checking the passports against a data base …… could they actually be accessing a record of who has entered the country? I just can’t imagine local police in Canada or the UK (the only places I’ve lived) having access to that kind of information via their phones? Perhaps someone on the forum knows?

I just can’t imagine local police in Canada or the UK (the only places I’ve lived) having access to that kind of information via their phones? Perhaps someone on the forum knows?

Zak, there are multiple levels/types of law enforcement/police in Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_Italy

Your passport was probably checked not by local police but by Carabinieri or Polizia di Stato.

"were checking the passports against a data base"

If they were checking everybody's documents, they were checking more than passports. Italians and EU citizens are not obliged to have passports with them (or at all), so they were probably checking other ID types.

Italian police (all corps) have access to a database called SDI (Sistema Di Indagine) which contains information related to each individual coming from different sources. They can therefore verify your criminal history, whether you have been arrested before, etc. For foreigners they can verify if one is in the country legally (with a valid 'permesso di soggiorno'). They can't verify everybody that has entered Italy, since there are no border controls within Schengen, but I presume they can access information on the entry to the Schengen area by a non EU citizen.

Very interesting - thanks. I must be careful to show the passport I entered the Shengen area with then!