The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced a 43 percent increase in Nigerian passport fees effective from September 1, 2024.
The upward review was made public on Wednesday through an official statement released by the Nigerian Immigration Service on X.
“Based on the review, 32-page Passport booklet with 5 year validity previously charged at Thirty-five Thousand Naira (N35,000.00) will now be Fifty Thousand Naira (N50,000.00) only; while 64-page Passport booklet with 10 year validity which was Seventy Thousand Naira (N70,000.00) will be One Hundred Thousand Naira (N100,000.00) only,” the statement revealed, noting that the passport fees remain unchanged in Diaspora.
The Nigerian government says the increase is part of its efforts to “maintain the quality and integrity of the Nigerian Standard Passport.”
“While the Nigeria Immigration Service regrets any inconvenience this increase might cause prospective applicants; it assures Nigerians of unwavering commitment to transparency and quality service delivery at all times,” the NIS stated
Last month, BusinessDay revealed that the Nigerian passport has been ranked as one of the 20 least powerful in 2024 for up to a decade, according to the Henley Passport Index, which ranks all the world’s passports based on the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa,
Based on information provided by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Nigeria is ranked 92 out of 103 on the index, with visa-free access to only 45 countries out of 227 this year.
Africa’s largest settlement has continued to maintain bottom ranking since 2015, performing poorly against its West African counterparts and forcing its citizens to spend millions of naira on visa travel to most cities.
