Obtaining An Armenian Passport Will Become More Expensive

The Armenian government approved a draft amendment to the Law on State Duties during its meeting today, June 1, which proposes to increase the rates of the state duty for providing certificates to citizens returning to Armenia.

The current law specifies a fee of 30,000 AMD when the applicant does not present an identification document and 10,000 AMD if they present a document that is unusable or expired. According to the government, these rates do not cover the state's expenses. Therefore, the proposed new rates exceed the current fees by several times. Specifically, a fee of 20,000 AMD is being proposed for issuing a return certificate to Armenia. For passport recovery and extending the validity period of a passport through identifying the applicant's identity via video call, the fee will be 45,000 AMD, while for establishing the identity of the applicant via video call to issue a valid passport in foreign countries, the fee will be 90,000 AMD.

Additionally, the government is proposing to eliminate the financial exemption established for citizens who have reached the age of 16. According to the current law, citizens of Armenia who obtain a passport for the first time after turning 16 are exempt from paying a state duty of 1,000 AMD. The proposed new regulations aim to make the payment of this 1,000 AMD fee mandatory.

“Currently, a citizen needs to obtain an Armenian passport (either an old model or biometric) only if they plan to travel abroad (cross the Armenian border). If we try to imagine how much a citizen has to spend just to visit the nearest foreign country, it becomes clear that the exemption from the 1,000 AMD state duty for obtaining a passport, applicable only to first-time applicants after the age of 16, no longer has any legal, administrative, social, or any other rational component or justification,” the rationale states.

According to the government's calculations, the annual revenue from the state duties collected from the aforementioned passport transactions is expected to increase by approximately 75 million AMD with the adoption of the draft law.