New rules in offing to end city restriction for passport applications

ISLAMABAD – The federal government is considering an amendment to rules regarding issuance of passports to the Pakistan citizens in order to extend more facilities.

Reports said the suggestions have been sent to the cabinet for approval. The new rules, if approved, will allows the applicants to apply for the passport renewal or new passport in any city of Pakistan as currently they are bound to visit the passport offices of their home city to submit applications.

Meanwhile, the government is also taking measures to pace up the process for issuance of passport as people are facing delay in this regard.

Authorities have ordered new printing machines to enhance the printing capacity so the citizens could get the travel documents timely.

Normal and Urgent Category Passport Fee

The Government of Pakistan has revised the Machine Readable Passport (MRP) fee effective from 07-03-2024.

The new fee for 36-page ordinary passport for 5 years now stands at Rs 4,500, while the urgent processing fee has increased from Rs5,000 to Rs7,500.

For 10-year validity period, the fee for 36-page passport has been increased to Rs 6,700 , with the urgent fee rising to Rs 11,200.

For 72-page passport for 5 years, people will have to pay Rs 8,200 for normal processing and Rs 13,500 for urgent processing.

For 100-page passport valid for 10 years, the new fee surged to Rs12,400 for regular processing and Rs20,200 for urgent processing.