India’s passport modernisation drive gathered pace on 19 November when Arun Kumar Chatterjee, Secretary (Consular & Diaspora), revealed that all passports issued after mid-2025 are now e-passports and that the entire stock of 150 million active booklets will be phased into chip-enabled formats by June 2035.
The new booklets contain an ICAO-compliant RFID chip storing encrypted facial, fingerprint and iris templates as well as a digital signature from the Controller of Certifying Authorities. According to Chatterjee, some 8 million e-passports have already been issued in India and a further 60,000 via missions overseas. The embedded antenna allows contact-less reading, cutting inspection times at immigration counters by up to 40 seconds per traveller.
![Government sets 2035 deadline for full switch to chip-embedded e-passports]()
For global-mobility teams the upgrade means smoother outbound journeys for Indian assignees and faster inbound processing for return trips. Early adopters report shorter queues at automated gates in Frankfurt and Singapore, while Delhi airport’s new e-gate trial will accept the chip without manual stamping from January 2026.
Legacy machine-readable passports will remain valid until expiry, so companies do not need to mass-renew staff documents. However, mobility managers should budget for higher replacement costs—₹ 1,500 versus ₹ 1,000 for a standard booklet—and brief travelling employees to protect the chip from bending or extreme heat.
The new booklets contain an ICAO-compliant RFID chip storing encrypted facial, fingerprint and iris templates as well as a digital signature from the Controller of Certifying Authorities. According to Chatterjee, some 8 million e-passports have already been issued in India and a further 60,000 via missions overseas. The embedded antenna allows contact-less reading, cutting inspection times at immigration counters by up to 40 seconds per traveller.
For global-mobility teams the upgrade means smoother outbound journeys for Indian assignees and faster inbound processing for return trips. Early adopters report shorter queues at automated gates in Frankfurt and Singapore, while Delhi airport’s new e-gate trial will accept the chip without manual stamping from January 2026.
Legacy machine-readable passports will remain valid until expiry, so companies do not need to mass-renew staff documents. However, mobility managers should budget for higher replacement costs—₹ 1,500 versus ₹ 1,000 for a standard booklet—and brief travelling employees to protect the chip from bending or extreme heat.
