The Ministry of External Affairs has raised passport fees across categories, marking the first major revision in these charges since 2012. The new rules will come into force from July 1.The government has hiked the fees primarily to align the application charges with the rising administrative costs of processing, printing and securing passports. The revised Passports (Amendment) Rules, 2026, issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), implemented the following changes for a fresh passport or reissue:36-page passport: From Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,50060-page passport: From Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,50036-page tatkaal passport: From Rs 3,500 to Rs 5,00060-page tatkaal passport: From Rs 4,000 to Rs 6,000Meanwhile, there is a 10% discount for fresh passport applications made by children up to eight years and senior citizens above 60. However, for those seeking a reissue of a lost or damaged passport, the cost is even higher — from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 for a 36-page book, and from Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,500 for the bigger book with 60 pages. On the government’s passport application website, under the fee structure column, there is a note: Fee schedule would be restructured after the nationwide rollout of the Passport Seva Project.So one can presume that since just a day earlier — on June 24 — as the Ministry of External Affairs marked the Passport Seva Day, it also announced that rollout of Passport Seva Project is nearing completion, with a massive increase in passport facilities, scaling from 77 to 545 Passport Seva Kendras and Post Office Passport Seva Kendras over the last decade. Also Read | If passport not a proof of citizenship, what is? What India’s various laws sayOver 1.5 crore passport-related services were delivered in 2025, and citizens now spend an average of less than 45 minutes at Kendras, it said. Standard passport processing has been reduced to six working days (excluding police verification). The MEA also noted the successful and ongoing rollout of highly secure, chip-enabled e-passports.Nearly one crore e-passports have been issued to Indian citizens since the launch of the next-generation passport project in May 2024. India is estimated to have around 10 crore passport holders. The MEA says all existing passports will be replaced by e-passports by 2035.So who do we pay extra money to?Story continues below this adAs an e-governance project, when the Passport Seva Project was launched in 2010, to overhaul and digitise the passport issuance system, it was done in partnership with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). The modern system integrates biometric data and digital verification processes to speed up police clearances and prevent document forgery. The project also paved the way for the next-generation ePassports, which include secure microchips. However, according to the TCS website, the Passport Seva Project is run on a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model, meaning the private partner bears the initial capital costs. The government does not fund the project up-front. Instead, it pays per-transaction fees directly to TCS, which are then offset by the application and processing fees paid by citizens. Also Read | One-tenth of Indian passport-holders now have e-passports. What’s so special about these?According to a Lok Sabha response by the Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur, the MEA obtained approval of the Union Cabinet in September 2007, to outsource front-end passport services, creating a centralised IT system linking all PSKs, RPO/POs’, Police and Postal Department and permitting the private partner to levy a Service Charge for each service. Following a two bid process, TCS was selected as Service Provider in May 2008 for implementation. TCS would recover its cost through Service Charge per passport based on volumes and subject to 27 stringent service delivery levels — encompassing various parameters such as external and internal efficiency; external, internal and technical effectiveness; environment and ambience and customer relations. Divya A reports on travel, tourism, culture and social issues - not necessarily in that order - for The Indian Express. She's been a journalist for over a decade now, working with Khaleej Times and The Times of India, before settling down at Express. Besides writing/ editing news reports, she indulges her pen to write short stories. As Sanskriti Prabha Dutt Fellow for Excellence in Journalism, she is researching on the lives of the children of sex workers in India. ... Read More Tags:Express Explained