All old Ugandan passports to expire in January

All Ugandan passports will have to be replaced by the new East African E-passport by the end of January 2021, the government has announced.

“The government through the Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration in the Ministry of Internal Affairs has set the end of January 2021 as the deadline for phasing out of all old passports which are to be replaced by the new East African E-passport,” a statement from URA reads in part.

By the announcement, old passport owners have only five months to comply

“You are therefore encouraged to apply for the new E-Passports early enough to avoid possible last-minute inconveniences,” the statement continues.

Accordingly, it will cost a citizen Shs 250,000 to obtain an ordinary passport of 48 pages and Shs100,000 as fine for the replacement of an old or damaged passport.

For those who would want to obtain passports on the express process, they will have to part with and extra Shs150,000 and a three days wait for the passport. A normal passport takes 10 working days.

An extra Shs30,000 will be levied on passports for certification.

For those abroad, they will incur Shs10,000 on courier fees.

Other costs include; Shs 500,000 (for Diplomatic passports) and Shs400,000 for service official passports.

The new International EAC e-passport is a physical passport like the current ones but will be embedded with a secure electronic chip that will contain more details including a biodata page that will have special security features.

The new passport has more security features like the Coat of Arms, the Crested Crane, the Mountain Gorilla, the Independence Monument, Murchison Falls, and the fishing man.

The new passport will ease clearance at the entry/exit points. It will facilitate the use of e-gates for self clearance, automated issuance of Boarding Passes, and quicker processing across airports worldwide where e-passport reader equipment is installed.