The Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposed to increase fees for issuing foreign passports to Russians abroad

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has proposed indexing the fees for consular services that Russians can receive abroad. These include fees for issuing foreign passports, it follows from project resolutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation on the portal of draft normative legal acts.

The Foreign Ministry proposed increasing the cost of issuing a regular international passport with a five-year validity period from $30 to $35, and a ten-year passport with biometric data from $80 to $90. The indexation of fees in the project was also prescribed for passports of citizens of the Russian Federation, which are issued up to 14 years of age. The cost will change from $10 to $15 for a regular passport, from $40 to $50 for a biometric one.

The agency explained that the current amount of consular fees was established in 2010 and has not been indexed since then, although the purchasing power of the US dollar has since decreased by more than 30%. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs uses American currency as a reference currency for setting rates.

“Taking into account the above, it is envisaged that the fee rates will be adjusted upward. At the same time, for the consular documents most in demand among Russian citizens (passports, powers of attorney), the increase in fees will be $5-10, which will ensure minimization of the burden of additional costs imposed on payers of the corresponding fees,” the document clarifies.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also proposed in the draft to increase the fees for filing an application for renunciation of Russian citizenship in a general and simplified manner from $65 to $130. The increase in cost will also affect notarial actions for certifying a marriage contract from $100 to $110 and for certifying wills – from $25 to $35.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs included in the draft the possibility of free receipt of a standard business visa for foreign citizens who have cards for official and business trips to the territory of countries participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

At the end of August, the Ministry of Internal Affairs presented a list of signs by which a foreign passport can be declared invalid. These include violation of the security elements of the passport form and its integrity, as well as damage to photographs, machine-readable records and electronic storage media.