Interior Ministry rebuffs hike in passport fees

• Ministry of Interior rejected reports of hike in passport fees
• It clarifies there is no hike in fees of Machine Readable Passports
• It added that the issuance of ordinary e-passports has not started

ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Interior on Saturday strongly rejected reports circulating on social media about the increase in fees of Machine Readable Passports (MRPs),

“There is no increase of any kind in the fee of Machine Readable Passports,” a spokesman for the minister clarified, terming them “baseless.”

The spokesperson said further said the federal government had approved the issuance of e-passports, but facility has not been launched yet.

The Department of Immigration and Passports had recently fixed the ordinary fee for e-passports, which would be applicable for e-passports only while the rest fees to remain the same, the spokesperson added.

The federal government recently issued the fee schedule for the issuance of e-passports for diplomatic, and official ordinary categories.

From 30 December 2022,  the government started issuing e-passport from Islamabad only.  The issuance of ordinary e-passports for citizens and overseas Pakistanis has not yet started.

An e-passport has an embedded electronic chip that contains biometric information, such as fingerprints and a photograph, of the passport holder. The e-passports is being issued only from Islamabad.

The normal fee for normal 36 pages e-passport with 5-year validity is Rs9000 and urgent is Rs15000. The normal fee for normal 36 pages e-passport with 10-year validity is Rs13,500 and urgent is Rs22,500.

The normal fee for normal 72 pages e-passport with 5-year validity is Rs16,500 and urgent is Rs27,500. The normal fee for normal 72 pages e-passport with 10-year validity is Rs24,750 and the urgent is Rs40,500.

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