It has been confirmed that the ten-year validity passports in New Zealand will be issued instead of at present five years from this year’s November month ending.
Peter Dunne, Internal Affairs Minister, has welcomed the Passport Amendment Bill passage and also said that there will likely be an early rush in the applications.
He said that the validity of ten years will give the greater convenience for most aged passport holders, as they would not require to renew their passports frequently. It will also result in the decline in average price annually of adult passport for citizens of New Zealand.
This ten year validity passport will cost around $180, which also includes GST tax, making an average saving of $90 over 10 years period as average amount of the two five-year validity passports over ten years, including a renewal of approximately $270.
Child appearance could change significantly over the period of time, the passport for a child will stay valid for five year period as its foreign convention.
Peter Dunne said that the reputation of the passport will not get affected by the changing its validity period to ten years. He also said that they must protect the trusted foreign reputation of their passport which allows the people of New Zealand the freedom to travel almost 170 countries without any visa application.
Unlike the main counterparts, New Zealand is already providing the service for online process of renewing the adult passport. – He added.
Figures showing that presently over 40% of adult passport renewal applications are submitted online. Dunne also said that they are looking for extending the online service for child renewals and for the adult applicants who apply for first time in future. He said that he wants the passport to remain affordable and providing services including continuation of subsidizing the child passports through fees from adult passports for ensuring the passports remains affordable to the families.
The price of ten year validity period passport would reflect the need for keeping the price affordable for the people of New Zealand while the production cost are stretch over much lesser volumes that are being produced.
