Getting Your Child a Passport

This is one of the series where a location and a process are explained for the common good.

Pre-requisites

You'll need the following:

1. CNIC of both parents
2. Passports of both parents (even one would do but it's better if both have passports)
3. Child Registration Certificate (CRC, formerly known as Form B) from NADRA
4. Photocopies of all the above documents

Step 0: Locating your nearest passport office

You must find out your nearest passport office. Unfortunately, I don't know of any up-to-date list maintained by the government which could help you. Karachi, for example, has several passport offices, one for each district; the one in Awami Markaz is for Karachi East.

Step 1: Paying the fee

The fee (Rs. 2000 for ordinary and Rs. 4000 for urgent) is deposited in a branch of National Bank of Pakistan close to the passport office. To ease your ordeal, it's better to deposit the fee a day or two earlier than your intended visit to the passport office. This will allow you to get your "token" from the passport office much earlier in the morning (as other "competitors" will spend initial some time of the day in depositing the fee).

Step 2: Inside the passport office

Once you have deposited the fee, take the stamped slip from the bank to the "token counter" of the passport office along with your CNIC and the child's CRC (form B) to get your queue token number. Once you get that, you'll have to move from counter to counter in the following order: photograph of the child; data entry + print out and photocopies submission; validation of the documents and the print out of the last step. Finally, you'll come to the "decision" counter where an Assistant Director will do a very short interview of you and depending on the age of the child, he might ask a few questions from the child as well.

Step 3: Getting the form attested

If you think that by reaching the last "decision counter" your journey has finished, you are badly mistaken. You'll be told to get the print out of the data (entered by the passport office) attested by a grade 17 government official. Get that done. Please note that this and the next step are only required when a child's passport is to be made---it's not required for elders who already have a CNIC.

Step 4: Submission of the attested form and the photocopies

Bring the attested form back to the "Information counter" of the office along with all other copies which would have been returned to you at the end of Step 2. Don't forget to check the location from where you'll have to collect the passport once its made.

Step 5: Collect your passport

Visit the designated passport office (5 working days after your documents submission in case of urgent passport; 12 working days, otherwise) to collect your passport. In case of Karachi, for example, all passports have to be collected from the Saddar office.

Step 6: Thank God!