For travel within Mercosur—as well as Chile and Bolivia—Uruguayan citizens do not need a passport, as they may use their national identity document instead. Since October 16, 2015, the Ministry of the Interior has issued biometric passports that meet ICAO and U.S. Visa Waiver Program standards.[2]
According to the 2025 Henley Passport Index, Uruguayan nationals had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 157 countries and territories, ranking the Uruguayan passport 23rd in terms of travel freedom.[3]
Legal citizens
The Constitution of Uruguay distinguishes between "nationality" and "citizenship". Under this distinction only individuals born in Uruguay, or those born abroad to a Uruguayan parent or grandparent (Oriental), are considered "Uruguayan nationals".[4][5] As a result, Uruguay does not grant nationality through naturalization; instead, it confers "legal citizenship" to foreign residents who satisfy certain residency and legal requirements.[A][6][7]
Because of this constitutional differentiation, the government determined that the "nationality" field in the passport should be reserved exclusively for nationals. Consequently, Uruguayan passports issued to naturalized "legal citizens", list their country of birth in the "nationality" field, even if the holder no longer possesses or never held the citizenship of the country where they were born, since not all countries grant citizenship by birth.[8] This has led to complications in matters such as visa applications, immigration controls and international recognition, since the "nationality" is the status used in international and administrative contexts.[9][10]
In April 2025, the National Directorate of Civil Identification decided to replace the passport’s "Nationality" field with a "Citizenship/Nationality" field, using the URY code for both national and legal citizens, so that the issuing country of the document and the citizenship of its holder coincide, and removed the "Birthplace" field.[11]
However, in August 2025, Uruguay reverted to the previous passport format after France, Germany, and Japan banned passports without a "Birthplace" field.[12][13] This reversion worsened the legal issues, as Uruguay not only re-added the "Birthplace" field and continued to use the "nationality" field only for Uruguayan nationals, but also decided that for all passports held by legal citizens, the country of issue in the machine-readable zone would correspond to the holder's country of birth, creating further legal inconsistencies and complications for international travel.
By contrast, countries such as the United States also distinguish between citizens and nationals, but this does not create issues, as both categories use the same nationality code in the "nationality" field, ensuring consistency in international travel documents.[14]
↑ Only natural-born citizens—individuals born within the national territory, as well as children of a Uruguayan father or mother—hold Uruguayan nationality.
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Uruguay 
