The Iraqi National Card is an biometric identity card issued by the Ministry of Interior from January 1, 2016. It replaced the Nationality Certificate and Civil Identification Document and the Residency Card. This card has a high security platform and is connected directly to the Iraqi Civil System, and can be used to travel within Iraq and Syria.
The Ministry of Interior awarded Giesecke & Devrient the contract for this project on October 31, 2013. The National Card was first issued starting September 13, 2015 and is rolling out to each of the 190 districts of Iraq over a period of several years with the goal of issuing an ID card to every Iraqi citizen.
The new National Card is an ID-1 (credit card size) polycarbonate card with an embedded RFID chip. It is covered with multi-color guillochés. All the information on it is given in Arabic and Kurdish.
The front side shows the coat of arms of Iraq and the words "ìàÃÂÃÂñÃÂé çÃÂùñçà/ Republic of Iraq", "ÃÂòçñé çÃÂïçîÃÂÃÂé / Ministry of Interior" and "àïÃÂñÃÂé çÃÂìÃÂóÃÂé çÃÂùçàé / General Directorate of Nationality". It contains the following information:
The MRZ is structured according to the ICAO standard for machine-readable ID cards.
Empty spaces are represented by "<".
The identity card contains the following security features: It has an RFID chip.
It costs 5,000 Iraqi dinars for a new card application, which is equal to US$4.