The Ministry of Internal Affairs has set the new deadline as promised in its December announcement to phase out the traditional machine-readable passports which will be 4th April 2022. It says it planned for a transition period in 2019 from the old passports to the new International e-passports which would end in 2021. But due to sudden inconveniences caused by the pandemic, it had to halt its plans.
The previous announcement in December last year was a communication on how the Ministry had postponed its deadline and was planning on a new one to give people more time to prepare as the old passports are phased out.
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The use of International e-passports came as a directive by the East African Community in December 2016 as a means to promote regional integration among member countries.
Other EAC countries’ efforts in issuing International e-passports.
On the other hand, Uganda’s neighbors already embarked on launching the use of e-passports in their countries. Kenya was the first country to roll out e-passports in September 2017 to implement the directive.
Tanzania followed suit when it announced in February 2020 that it was phasing out the old passports and that Tanzanians had until March 1st, 2020 for their passports to stop working.
It is not certain when Rwanda plans on initially issuing the e-passports but it announced that it had started its transition process and all old passports would stop working until June 27th, 2021.
Of all the member states, Uganda still lags but the Ministry of Internal affairs encourages citizens to use this postponed deadline to their advantage to apply for e-passports and avoid inconveniences in the future when the deadline reaches.
Simply click here and you’ll be directed to the e-passport portal where you will receive instructions on how to apply and pay for an International e-passport.
For clarification, feel free to reach out to the Ministry’s Public Relations Office via these toll-free numbers; 0800199003/0800199004 or send an email via [email protected].