Pakistan has given passport applicants a few more days before the e-passport era becomes mandatory. The Directorate General of Immigration and Passports (DGI&P) has moved the deadline for e-passport-only issuance from October 15 to October 23, 2026, which means machine-readable passports will still be issued and renewed until October 22. The revised schedule applies to passport offices across the country and to Pakistani diplomatic missions abroad. Passports already issued stay valid until their printed expiry dates, but anyone applying after the cutoff will receive an e-passport, and will pay the new, nearly doubled fee.
The new date was confirmed in revised notices issued by Pakistani diplomatic missions, and was first reported by ProPakistani on October 19, followed by Dunya News, Daily Pakistan and Pakistan Observer on October 20. This is PakMirror’s follow-up to the earlier announcement of the October 15 e-passport cutoff, which reported the original switchover plan.
The new date: what moved
Under the revised policy, from October 23 every new passport application, whether for a first-time document or a renewal, will be processed as an e-passport. The issuance and renewal of machine-readable passports continues until October 22, and documents issued before the switch remain valid until their expiry. Holders of valid machine-readable passports do not need to replace them early.
The Consulate General of Pakistan in New York announced the revised October 23 date on October 14, according to ProPakistani. The Embassy of Pakistan in Doha has issued its own updated schedule: it will begin issuing e-passports on October 25, while continuing to issue machine-readable passports until October 22.
A timeline of the slipping deadline
The cutoff has now moved twice in two months. In June 2026, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi decided that Pakistan would move completely to e-passports. On September 25, the Consulate General in New York circulated the directive setting October 15 as the final day for machine-readable passport applications. October 15 then arrived as planned, but day one did not run entirely smoothly: the Embassy of Pakistan in Muscat suspended passport processing on technical grounds and resumed services a day later. On October 14, missions began issuing notices with the revised October 23 start date, and Pakistani outlets confirmed the extension on October 19 and 20. The Directorate General has not published an official reason for the revision.
What an e-passport carries
The document is built around a contactless NFC chip embedded in one of its pages. According to the DGI&P, the chip stores the holder’s biometric data, personal information, facial details, a unique identification number and a digital signature, all of which can be read electronically by compatible border-control systems. The passports are designed to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standards and add laser engraving plus infrared and ultraviolet security elements that the old machine-readable document did not have. E-passport holders can also use automated e-gates at airports where that technology is available.
The chip is meant to make forgery harder, though biometric identity systems are not bulletproof. Pakistan has seen recent biometric SIM-swap fraud cases in which criminals harvested fingerprints from leaked databases and bypassed biometric checks, a reminder that any identity document still needs physical safeguards. The same biometric infrastructure underpins biometric verification already used for SIM registration in Pakistan.
The new fees
The switchover nearly doubles what applicants pay. For a five-year, 36-page passport, the normal fee rises from Rs4,500 under the old machine-readable system to Rs9,000 for the e-passport, while the urgent fee rises from Rs7,500 to Rs15,000, according to the Express Tribune. TechJuice reports the full DGI&P schedule: a ten-year, 36-page e-passport costs Rs13,500 normal and Rs22,500 urgent; the five-year, 72-page version costs Rs16,500 normal and Rs27,000 urgent; and the ten-year, 72-page version costs Rs24,750 normal and Rs40,500 urgent.
The fee jump lands at a time when passport demand is high. The Passport and Immigration Department says 5,572,130 passports were issued nationwide in 2025, of which nearly 180,000 were e-passports, according to the Express Tribune. To handle the transition, the department says it has installed ten additional printing machines and six laminators, and has round-the-clock service at 232 offices at home and 93 counters at Pakistani missions abroad.
Who must act before October 22
Anyone who wants a machine-readable passport at the old fee must apply by October 22. From October 23, only e-passports will be issued to new applicants, and expired machine-readable passports cannot be renewed as machine-readable documents. People whose current passports are still valid can simply keep using them until the printed expiry date, subject to the usual entry and visa rules of their destination countries. For the latest on this topic, follow PakMirror’s technology news from Pakistan.
