Nigerians will from September 1, 2025, pay ₦100,000 for a 32-page, five-year passport and ₦200,000 for a 64-page, 10-year passport, as the Federal Government insists the new rates are necessary to eliminate corruption, speed up processing, and protect the integrity of the country’s travel documents.
The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), in a Thursday statement signed by its spokesperson ACI AS Akinlabi, explained that the new fee regime applies only to applications made within Nigeria, while diaspora charges remain at $150 and $230 respectively. The agency said the review was essential to sustain production quality and ensure timely delivery of passports.
Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, defending the increase at the ministry’s mid-tenure retreat in Abuja, said the reforms would guarantee Nigerians receive their passports within a week of enrolment. He stressed that the era of extortion, six-month backlogs, and desperate applicants paying middlemen up to ₦200,000 just to fast-track processing was over.
“My own daughter once had to go through the nightmare. At 12 years old, it took hundreds of thousands of naira before she could get a passport,” Tunji-Ojo revealed. “That era is gone. We are building a system where Nigerians get their passports on time without bribing anyone.”
The minister said the newly launched centralised personalisation centre — the largest in Africa — now has the capacity to print five times Nigeria’s demand, meaning that once enrolment is completed, vetting and printing can be done within 24 hours. He also announced that Passport Control Officers (PCOs) will no longer hold approval powers, a move he described as crucial to cutting out abuse and restoring credibility.
“We realised the best way to kill corruption is to cut human contact to the barest minimum. Some officers delayed approvals deliberately until they were ‘settled.’ That nonsense ends now. Passport approval is centralised; efficiency is my only priority,” he declared.
Beyond speed, Tunji-Ojo emphasised that the reforms were about protecting national identity. He cited past abuses where foreigners illegally procured Nigerian passports, including a Ugandan woman arrested in Lagos after paying $1,000 for a forged document. “Our passport must be sacred. Only Nigerians should carry it,” he said.
The hike comes barely a year after an August 2024 adjustment, when the 32-page booklet rose from ₦35,000 to ₦50,000 and the 64-page from ₦70,000 to ₦100,000. While the new fees have sparked public outcry, the government insists the reforms will finally align Nigeria’s passport process with global standards, eliminate bottlenecks, and make the green passport a respected symbol of national pride.
