Home Affairs increases national document fees

WINDHOEK, 01 Aug  – Fees for the majority of national document will be increased by 50 per cent as from 01 August this year, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration (MHAI) announced at a media briefing in Windhoek on Tuesday.
According to MHAI spokesperson, Sakeus Kadhikwa, this follows a review and approval by Cabinet.
“All necessary legal procedures were followed and a new fee structure is effective on 01 August,” he said.
The increase includes applications for diplomatic, official and ordinary passports, emergency travel certificates, employment and study permits, visas, marriage certificates and birth certificates.
“The Head of State, First Lady, Vice President, Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister have been exempted from the new fee structure for diplomatic passports,” he stated.
First-time applications for national documents such as birth and death certificates, marriage certificates and identity documents are currently free, but for duplicate or correction of birth certificates, a fee of N. dollars 50 is charged.
A duplicate of a death or marriage certificate and identity documents will now cost N. dollars 100 each.
Kadhikwa revealed that fees for residence permits will go up from N. dollars 12 000 to N. dollars 18 000, while international students at tertiary institutions will now pay N. dollars 2000 for study permits, which went up from N. dollars 1 400.
“With the revised fees, the change of surnames will cost N. dollars 300, this excludes costs for advertisements in the newspaper and Government Gazette,” he added.
Application for an ordinary passport will cost N. dollars 200, while duplicate will be N. dollars 400.
The communications officer further informed the media that those seeking to replace damaged or lost passports, including emergency travel certificates will have to pay N. dollars 300.
He further added that the new naturalisation citizenship certificates and a marriage citizenship certificate will cost N. dollars 1000 each, while duplicates will cost N. dollars 200.

“First-time applications for visas and extension for 90 days per year would be N. dollars 500, while first-time applications for employment certificates and extensions per year will cost N. dollars 2 500,” he proclaimed.
International students applying for study permits for primary and secondary schools will pay N. dollars 1 500 per year, however, no charges would be required from people from countries that have visa-free agreements with Namibia.
The MHAI further announced that this was the first time since 2004 that a fee increase was effected and that it was necessitated by the ministry’s need to recoup its service related costs as it was currently not making a profit on the provision of these services.
(NAMPA)