Replacement of passport of Ukraine

The passport of a citizen of Ukraine is the main (though not the only one) document that certifies a person's identity and unquestionably determines his or her citizenship of Ukraine. That is why it is the duty of every citizen of Ukraine to treat the passport of Ukraine with care, as well as timely replace the document in cases provided for by law.
The legislation defines the following cases when a passport must be replaced:
1) unfitness of the Ukrainian passport for use
2) change of personal data of the passport holder
3) detection of an error in the passport of Ukraine
4) expiration of the passport of Ukraine
5) at the passport holder's own request
Let's analyse all these cases in more details to determine the main features of replacing a passport of a citizen of Ukraine.

PASSPORT REPLACEMENT DUE TO UNFITNESS FOR USE

A passport document that has significant mechanical damage that prevents the identity of the owner or the document itself is considered unfit for use. In particular, such damage can be:
- damage/defoliation of the upper layer of the passport-booklet;
- peeling off the photo card or any damage to it (rubbed, wet, scratched, etc.);
- damage to the perforation of the passport booklet (perforation is a mechanical image of the series and number of the passport on each page of the passport);
- torn pages of the passport-booklet;
- damaged pages of the passport containing information about the person (wet, dirty, painted, etc.);
- entry of any marks in the passport of Ukraine by another state (residence permit);
- mechanical damage to the ID card by breaking it or damaging the machine-readable part, etc.
It is worth noting that the state of the passport, in which it can no longer be used, is an evaluative concept, therefore it is decided in each specific case by competent persons of the migration service. The practice has developed only general cases described above, which can be grounds for rejecting a passport for legal action and declaring it damaged and unfit for use.
What documents are required to replace a damaged passport? In such cases, the passport itself is needed, no matter how damaged it is. You will also need an identification code to enter it in the ID card, documents on marital status (marriage / divorce). If you have a damaged passport of the old type, which was issued in the currently uncontrolled territories, you will need additional documents with a photo: a foreign passport, a driver's license, etc. If you damaged the ID card, you don't need anything except the damaged card itself, all the necessary information about you is already contained in the Demographic Register.

PASSPORT REPLACEMENT DUE TO THE CHANGE OF THE HOLDER'S PERSONAL DATA

This reason for replacing the passport is possible in connection with the change of the following personal data:
- last name (as part of the marriage, divorce, adoption procedure);
- first or last name (as part of the name change procedure);
- patronymic name (as part of the adoption procedure);
- refusal of an identification code or, conversely, receiving a code after refusal (if you are a holder of an ID card).
The most common reason is the replacement of a Ukrainian passport in connection with marriage. It is possible to change your passport after marriage only on the territory of Ukraine, that is, if you got married abroad, to change your passport you need to go to the territory of Ukraine. If the marriage was registered abroad, depending on the country, the certificate must be apostilled / legalized and translated into Ukrainian.
The procedure for changing the last name and/or name at the person's own request is also possible only on the territory of Ukraine. No foreign country has the right to change the last name or first name of a citizen of Ukraine, except for the procedure of marriage or divorce. In practice, there are often cases when the registration of a marriage abroad does not involve resolving the issue of the last name of the spouses (the marriage certificate does not have the column "Last name after marriage"), the state authorities of the country issue a separate document unrelated to the marriage on the change of the last name. Unfortunately, according to the legislation of Ukraine, such documents are not grounds for changing the surname in a person's passport, and in such a case, already upon arrival in Ukraine, a separate procedure must be carried out - changing the last name through the Civil Registry Office.

REPLACEMENT OF THE PASSPORT OF UKRAINE DUE TO THE DETECTION OF AN ERROR

This reason is not common enough, however, there are cases of erroneous information being entered into the passport, most often regarding the date or place of birth of a person. There are also cases of wrong information being entered in the passport regarding the last name, first name, or patronymic name. Most often, this concerns passport-booklets, the holders of which were born during the times of the former USSR and had birth certificates issued in Russian. Accordingly, the spelling of first or last names in Ukrainian and Russian may not match. In such cases, at the request of the person, it is possible to change the spelling of the last or first name or patronymic name in the passport based on the translation of the Russian-language birth certificate into Ukrainian.

REPLACEMENT OF UKRAINIAN PASSPORT DUE TO PASSPORT EXPIRATION

This reason applies primarily to passports in the form of ID cards, since they are issued with a limited validity period: for children for 4 years, for adults for 10 years. A person must apply for a new passport no earlier than one month before the passport expires.
However, this reason can also be applied to passports in the form of a booklet, in the event that the person is overdue for pasting a photo to the passport-booklet by more than 1 month. According to the legislation, if you have not pasted a photo within a month after reaching 25 and 45 years of age, you must replace your passport with an ID card. Exceptions are periods of quarantine and martial law in Ukraine. You can read more about this reason for replacing a passport on the page of pasting a photo in a passport.

REPLACEMENT OF THE PASSPORT OF UKRAINE AT YOUR OWN WISH

First of all, this reason is used to change the passport-booklet to an ID card. Until recently, it was possible to get an ID card only if there were the above-mentioned grounds. However, at present, if a person wishes to obtain a passport of Ukraine of a new model in the form of an ID card, he/she can do so without any restrictions. At the same time, in order to replace an old-style passport with an ID card, a person must provide the following documents:
- passport-booklet
- identification code
- documents on marital status
- foreign passport (if available).