Bermudians heading to the United States after October 1 will need a machine-readable passport or else must get a visa.

Chief Immigration Officer Martin Brewer said most people would not be affected by the new ruling. He said machine readable passports were introduced in Bermuda in 1995 and that about 42,000 of the 50,000 passports issued in the last ten years were machine readable.

Machine-readable passports have two lines of characters on the foot of the data page said Dr. Brewer with the name, number and code. US authorities are requiring the modern passports to reduce queues. Dr. Brewer said members of the public who were not sure if they had the right passport could contact immigration while those needing a new one could expect it within eight working days.