Passport services to return to normal on Sun, says Ihusaan

Passport issuance services in the Maldives will return to normal from Sunday, 11 October, following months of disruption caused by technical problems at a German company supplying passport booklets, Minister of Homeland Security and Technology Ali Ihusaan has announced.

Speaking at a press conference at the President’s Office on Thursday, Ihusaan said the problems affecting passport issuance had been resolved and a new supply of passport booklets was expected to arrive over the weekend.

The minister said the arrival of the new stock would allow Maldives Immigration to resume normal passport issuance from Sunday.

The issuance of biometric e-passports has been disrupted since May after technical problems affected printing equipment at the German company that has supplied passport booklets to the Maldives since 2016.

Delays in resolving the problem prompted Immigration to introduce restrictions on passport issuance, prioritising applicants with urgent travel requirements.

Ihusaan said the restrictions had resulted in a backlog of 2,646 passport applications.

He estimated that clearing the backlog would take approximately five days once normal operations resumed.

However, he assured travellers with urgent requirements that passports would be issued without difficulty from Sunday.

The minister said passports would continue to be issued for essential travel over the next two days under the existing restrictions.

According to Ihusaan, Immigration receives an average of approximately 350 passport applications a day.

Passport services are currently provided at 39 locations across the Maldives. He said all these locations would resume normal operations from Sunday.

During the disruption, Maldives Immigration introduced temporary measures to minimise difficulties for travellers unable to obtain new passports.

These included extending the validity of expired passports until the end of June 2027 without charging a fee, instead of issuing replacement passports to eligible applicants.

Immigration also introduced one-year machine-readable emergency passports for first-time applicants travelling for short periods to destinations commonly visited by Maldivians, including India and Sri Lanka.

The measures were introduced to allow travel to continue while restrictions remained in place due to the passport booklet supply problems.

With new passport stocks expected over the weekend, the government says normal issuance services will resume nationwide from Sunday, while outstanding applications are expected to be processed over the following five days.