Latvia will need even more modern passports

In about ten years’ time the now new passports will need to be replaced again, as journalists were told by the chief of the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) Maira Roze.
In October 2022 LETA wrote that German and Portugal-based companies “Veridos GmbH” and “Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda, S.A. had won in the EUR 9.8 million worth procurement organised by PMLP for the manufacture and supply of new passports.
The cheapest offer work in the procurement. A total of 1 250 000 passports will be supplied. PMLP has already begun issuing new passports at a new price as well.
Passport design should be updated every eight or ten years. “If new passports are starting to be issued now, residents who receive them in eight years will still be able to use them for another ten years. We have to keep in mind that this passport will be in circulation for 18 years, which means that you need to look at the latest technology, keep up with the times, incorporate new security features into your passports and also change the design,” stressed Roze.

The new model passports have many security features – ultraviolet light printing on the datasheet and front of the page,

visa sheets with UV print, optically variable ink feature printed as an oak leaf appearing in different colours. The passport also contains a multiple laser image embedded on the surface of the card, as well as a bright photo image colour and a colour image of the passport holder, complete with personal data. The portrait of the passport holder is also engraved in a transparent window.
Also, the new model passports have 42 pages, with more space for visa tags, as well as records of children of the passport holder.
Passports of the previous variant will remain valid until their expiration date.
The state fee for the issuance of a new passport is now EUR 34 instead of EUR 30 if the passport is issued within ten workdays. If a passport is issued in two days, the fee goes up to EUR 60 instead of EUR 55.
Benefits will be maintained for persons who are fully dependent on the state or local government, children under the age of 20, pensioners, persons with Group I or II disabilities, as well as refugees and persons who have been granted alternative status.
Also read: Authorities increase passport issue fee in Latvia by a couple of euros
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