Australian Passport Office is an independent operating agency of the Government of Australia with bureaucratic oversight provided through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) portfolio. It issues Australian passports to Australian citizens in Australia and overseas under the Australian Passports Act 2005 and related laws. The Passport Office may also issue other types of travel documents to non-citizens, such as Australian Convention Travel Document, Australian Certificate of Identity or Document of Identity. DFAT has offices in each of the nine Australian capital cities.
Since 24 October 2005, Australia has issued only biometric passports, called ePassports, which have an embedded microchip that contains the same personal information that is on the colour photo page of the passport, including a digitised photograph. As all previous passports have now expired, all Australian passports are now biometric.