{"id":183520,"date":"2025-12-14T16:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T16:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/183520\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T16:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T16:14:08","slug":"more-than-1-3-million-kiwis-passports-due-to-expire-by-2027-as-minister-urges-early-renewal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/183520\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 1.3 million Kiwis passports due to expire by 2027 as minister urges early renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MinisterMinister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden is urging New Zealanders to prepare for the pile-up and plan to renew their papers early. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only taking three days for passport applications to be processed at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf your passport expires in 2026, renew now before the rush. Don\u2019t let an expired passport get in the way of your travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Careful planning could help travellers avoid getting caught out while arranging their overseas trips, with Van Velden suggesting Kiwis check the expiry date on their passports this summer.<\/p>\n

Even passports that are several months out from expiry can be denied by immigration, with some countries, including Australia, requiring as much as six months\u2019 validity on arrival.<\/p>\n

The forecasts of potential backlogs follow travellers\u2019 complaints last year that applications for passport renewal were taking up to 10 weeks to be processed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Van Velden said the DIA has been working hard to address the system issues, \u201cdramatically\u201d reducing processing times from 25 days in 2023 to just three days in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis represents a great improvement in service delivery that will benefit every New Zealand family planning to travel overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The minister said quite a few people applied for 10-year passports when they were first introduced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re ramping up with the expectation that many people\u2019s passports will be expiring at the exact same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Velden said more staff had been brought in, and others had been seconded from within the DIA in anticipation of the upcoming surge.<\/p>\n

The passports website is currently advising applicants to allow for 20 days of processing.<\/p>\n

Adult passports are valid for 10 years and cost about $247, while renewals for children must be done every five years at a price of $144.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden is urging New Zealanders to prepare for the pile-up and plan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19838,18516,806,17094,3595,3043,16492,5910,2245,349,116259,266,807,42031,116260,1132,6722,130,111,43,139,1536,69,71979,6046,42371,81932,7250,131,2846,61,3552,1533,1530,80],"class_list":["post-183520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-19838","tag-18516","tag-as","tag-avoid","tag-by","tag-call","tag-delays","tag-due","tag-early","tag-expire","tag-expiring","tag-government","tag-kiwis","tag-lengthy","tag-logjam","tag-million","tag-minister","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-passports","tag-potential","tag-prompting","tag-renew","tag-renewal","tag-than","tag-them","tag-to","tag-urges","tag-will","tag-years","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}