Passport Office

How will a criminal conviction affect my passport application?

I have a court summons for 'fare dodging' for which I'm pleading guilty and I will get a criminal conviction for it.. I'm spose to be going on a compulsory trip to Berlin in March and haven't sent my application off yet because my photos were rejected.. how badly will this affect the application process?

Public Comments

1. It won't affect your passport application at all. A passport is nothing more than identification showing you to be a citizen of your country. A conviction doesn't affect that.
2. It won't make any difference to your application. Perhaps you are thinking of visas, and no visa is needed for Germany. Go ahead quickly, in case there's a rush for passports as Easter approaches.
3. It won't affect a passport application - it's not something the application form asks about. All that a passport is, is a proof of your citizenship and ID acceptable to other countries. Where convictions come into it is if you are asked about them when applying to another country for a visa (or in the case of the USA, it's one of the questions asked of people using the Visa Waiver Program). As you are asking from the US site I assume you are a US citizen, in which case you don't need a visa for a short trip to Germany anyway. Gute Reise! and to get the real taste of Berlin, try a dish of Currywurst - it was invented there in the late 1940s and is sold all over the place.