There are major benefits in standardizing travel document formats and including machine readable data in consistent forms. MRTDs benefit governments, transportation companies, etc., as described below. It is presumed that the potential user is equipped with machine readers configured to read the standard entries.

These readers can be used, for example, to check a travel document against a watch list, to verify the authenticity of the document, and/or to transmit the document information to other data bases, all in one easy step.

These benefits are expanded significantly as more and more countries issue MRTDs. Further, the wider the use of MRTDs, the less costly the technology needed to produce and read them.

The benefits will be expanded still further as progress continues on the search for improved security to prevent counterfeiting and alteration, and as verification technology (biometrics) come into more general use.

It should also be noted that adopting the standard ICAO format layout as a first step toward producing machine readable documents still has many benefits, including facilitating inspection and improving document security. To accomplish this, the issuing authority would use the Doc. 9303 format, but fill in only the visual zone