Passport Fees 2026 — Complete Chart

Passport fees are flat, public, and payable online — and knowing the chart cold is consumer armour in a service space thick with agents quoting multiples of it. The structure is simple: booklet size (36 or 60 pages) and validity class set the base, Tatkal adds its fixed ₹2,000 premium, minors and specific reissue cases carry their own lines, and the online payment at application time is the only fee the system ever asks for.

This guide covers the fee layer completely: the full chart per current schedule, what each line buys, the payment mechanics and receipt handling, the minor/lost/damaged special lines, the fee calculator’s role, refund-and-revalidation realities for changed plans, and the agent-markup arithmetic that the public chart demolishes.

Overview

Detail	Information
Standard fresh/reissue (36 pages, 10-yr)	₹1,500
Jumbo (60 pages, 10-yr)	₹2,000
Tatkal premium	+₹2,000 on the applicable base
Minor (under-18 class, 5-yr validity)	₹1,000 per current schedule
Payment	Online at application — cards/net-banking/UPI per portal options
Verify current	The portal’s Fee Calculator is the live source

The Fee Chart — Common Lines

Application	Normal	Tatkal
Fresh/reissue, 36 pages, 10-year	₹1,500	₹3,500
Fresh/reissue, 60 pages, 10-year	₹2,000	₹4,000
Minor (5-year validity class)	₹1,000	₹3,000
Lost/damaged reissue (36 pages)	₹3,000	₹5,000
Lost/damaged reissue (60 pages)	₹3,500	₹5,500

• Per current schedule — the lines above reflect the long-standing structure; the portal’s Fee Calculator confirms your exact case before payment
• The lost-passport premium is the carefulness tax — the doubled base prices replacement risk; the storage habits this series teaches are the discount

How Fees Work in the Pipeline

Step 1 — Calculate Before You File

The Fee Calculator takes application type, age class, pages, and scheme, and outputs your exact figure — run it first so the payment step holds no surprises.

Step 2 — Pay Online at Application

The fee pays within the application flow before appointment booking unlocks; the payment gateway’s options (cards, net banking, UPI per portal) all land the same receipt.

Step 3 — Save the Receipt

The payment receipt PDFs from your account view — into the family file with the ARN; it’s the proof layer for any payment dispute and the record for household accounts.

Step 4 — Understand What the Fee Bought

The fee covers the application’s processing end to end — verification, printing, speed-post dispatch included; no legitimate charge arrives later, and any “additional fee” call after payment is fraud by definition.

Step 5 — Changed Plans and the Fee

Reschedules within limits don’t re-charge; abandoned applications follow the system’s validity/refund realities — the honest note being that filed fees fund processing, so file when genuinely ready.

Choosing 36 vs 60 Pages — The ₹500 Question

• Frequent travellers — visa-stamp-heavy years fill 36 pages fast; the ₹500 jumbo premium beats an exhausted-booklet reissue’s full fee
• Occasional travellers — 36 pages serves a decade of normal use comfortably
• The arithmetic — a mid-validity page-exhaustion reissue costs the full ₹1,500+ again; anyone projecting heavy stamping buys the 60 upfront
• Minors — the 5-year validity class makes 36 the near-universal choice

The Agent-Markup Arithmetic

• The public chart is the whole price — every rupee the system wants appears in the calculator and pays online to the government gateway
• “Total package ₹6,000” quotes — the same ₹1,500 application plus form-filling you can do and queue-standing that doesn’t exist under the appointment system
• “Extra for police verification” claims — PV carries no applicant fee; money asked in its name is extortion of the uninformed
• Where paid help is legitimate — genuine assistance (a cyber café filling forms WITH you for a stated service charge) differs from impersonation-and-markup; the difference is transparency and your credentials staying yours

A Worked Example — The Fee Chart Defeating a ₹7,000 Quote

The chart’s consumer power, demonstrated: a first-time applicant’s neighbourhood “passport centre” quotes ₹7,000 “sab kuch milakar” — form, fees, “police clearance charges”, and “file follow-up” — and the applicant, this guide open, runs the real arithmetic instead: her case is a standard fresh 36-page application, the Fee Calculator confirms ₹1,500 total, the form is self-fillable in an evening (the application guide), the booking is free with the payment, and “police clearance charges” do not exist anywhere in the system’s design. Her direct filing: ₹1,500 paid to the government gateway, every subsequent step free, the booklet in hand within the month — and the ₹5,500 delta staying in her account, priced now for what it was: the neighbourhood’s margin on her assumed ignorance. The example’s export is the guide’s thesis: the fee chart isn’t trivia, it’s armour — five numbers memorised (or one calculator bookmarked) that reprice every agent conversation in the market instantly. Know the chart, pay the chart, and let every quote above it introduce itself as markup.

Payment Mechanics — The Gateway Done Right

• Pay inside the flow — the fee step arrives within your logged-in application; no external payment link is ever legitimate
• Instrument choice — cards, net banking, UPI per the portal’s options; all land the same receipt
• Failed-payment protocol — gateway hiccups resolve per the portal’s payment-status handling; re-attempt per its guidance rather than double-paying blind
• The receipt’s home — PDF from the account view into the family folder, named by date; the dispute-proof and the accounts entry both
• The no-later-charges law — the fee at filing is the transaction’s entirety; every subsequent money request, however official-sounding, is fraud by definition

Myths About Passport Fees — Cleared in One Pass

• “Fees vary by city or PSK” — the chart is national; every kendra prices identically
• “Cash at the counter is an option” — the fee pays online at filing; counter-cash stories are either history or fraud
• “Police verification has its own fee” — PV costs the applicant nothing, anywhere, ever
• “Speed post charges extra on delivery” — dispatch is inside the fee; doorstep collection demands are scams
• “Agents get fee discounts” — the gateway prices everyone identically; “discounted” quotes hide markup elsewhere
• “Tatkal premium is negotiable” — ₹2,000 flat by design; negotiation offers mark the fake

Quick Reference — Fees on One Card

• Standard — ₹1,500 (36pp) / ₹2,000 (60pp), 10-year class
• Tatkal — +₹2,000 flat: ₹3,500 / ₹4,000
• Minor — ₹1,000 (5-year class); Tatkal ₹3,000
• Lost/damaged — ₹3,000 / ₹3,500; Tatkal ₹5,000 / ₹5,500
• Verify — Fee Calculator before every payment
• Law — online at filing, once; anything after is fraud

Household Fee Planning — Budgeting the Family’s Passports

• The family table — two adults (₹1,500 each) plus two minors (₹1,000 each) = ₹5,000 for a household’s full first set at standard pace
• Stagger versus batch — batching suits the one-trip goal; staggering spreads the outlay across months where budgets prefer
• The renewal ledger — the ten-year cycle means the household’s passport line recurs predictably; the family calendar’s alarms double as budget notices
• Where premiums creep — deadline pressure converts ₹1,500 lines into ₹3,500 ones; the renewal guide’s early habit is the budget’s best friend
• The 60-page investments — the frequent-flyer members take the ₹500 jumbo option deliberately; the exhausted-booklet reissue it prevents costs triple

Refunds, Failures, and Edge Money Questions

The chart’s edge cases, answered plainly: PAYMENT FAILURES at the gateway resolve through the portal’s payment-status handling — the amount debited without a confirmed application follows the gateway’s reconciliation/refund track, and the protocol is patience-plus-records (the transaction reference saved) rather than immediate re-payment that risks doubling; ABANDONED APPLICATIONS follow the system’s validity rules — fees fund processing, so the honest counsel remains filing when genuinely ready; RESCHEDULES within limits carry no re-charge, and the appointment moves free; and WRONG-CATEGORY payments (the fee paid against a misfiled case) route through the RPO’s guidance for the specific situation. None of these edges changes the core law: money moves once, at filing, through the gateway — and every resolution path for edge cases runs through official channels with your receipt as the anchor document.

Fraud Watch — The Money-Demand Taxonomy

• The post-payment call — “file release ke liye ₹X” days after filing; the no-later-charges law identifies it instantly
• The PV-fee visit — verification-adjacent money demands; the PV guide’s extortion section applies, decline and report
• The delivery-charge doorstep — “speed post ke extra”; dispatch is prepaid inside the fee, refuse and note the incident
• The fake-penalty message — “expired application fine” and its cousins; no such penalties exist in the fee structure
• The refund-phish — “excess fee refund, share OTP/details”; refunds run through gateway reconciliation, never through your codes
• The reporting reflex — 1930 / cybercrime.gov.in for money-demand encounters; the receipt and the chart are your evidence

Reading the Fee Design — Flat, Public, and Deliberate

The closing design-reading: the fee structure’s three properties — FLAT (no city, income, or channel variation), PUBLIC (the chart and calculator open to everyone), and FRONT-LOADED (one payment, everything included) — are anti-corruption architecture as much as pricing: flat rates kill the negotiation space where informal charges breed, publicity kills the information asymmetry agents monetise, and front-loading kills every “additional charge” story before it starts, because the design itself testifies that nothing more is owed. Even the premium lines read coherently: Tatkal prices queue position transparently, and the lost-passport surcharge prices carelessness while funding replacement verification. The citizen’s half of the design is simply knowing it — the chart memorised or the calculator bookmarked — because architecture only protects the informed. Five numbers, one law, zero exceptions: the fee layer, working exactly as built.

The Fee Calculator — Two Minutes That Settle Everything

The calculator deserves its own walkthrough because it retires every fee doubt this guide can’t pre-answer: the portal’s Fee Calculator takes your application type (fresh/reissue), scheme (normal/Tatkal), age class, and booklet pages, and outputs the exact figure the gateway will charge — the LIVE authority that survives every schedule revision this article can’t foresee. The habit: run it at the application-idea stage (budgeting), again at filing (verification), and whenever any human quotes you a number (audit). Its two-minute output has a second power: printed or screenshotted into the family file, it’s the reference that settles relatives’ agent quotes, the neighbour’s “mere time pe itna tha” memories, and every forwarded rumour about fee hikes. This guide’s chart teaches the structure; the calculator rules the rupees — use both in that order.

Fees in the Series — The Money Thread Across Guides

• The application guide’s payment step — this chart is what that step charges; the calculator confirms before the gateway opens
• The Tatkal guide’s worksheet — the premium column here is that decision’s price input
• The renewal guide’s economics — early renewal keeps the household on this chart’s left column forever
• The fraud watches everywhere — every guide’s money-scam section roots in this guide’s one law: paid once, at filing, through the gateway
• The series’ money summary — the entire passport pipeline, done directly, costs exactly what this chart says and not a rupee more

A Second Worked Example — The Family Budget That Planned the Chart

The household version: a family of four plans next summer’s first trip abroad, and the fee chart becomes a January budgeting line instead of a spring surprise. Their sheet: two adult 36-page applications (₹3,000), two minor applications (₹2,000) — ₹5,000 total, slotted into February’s calm-season filing per the renewal guide’s calendar wisdom; the 60-page question considered and declined (occasional travellers), the Tatkal column consciously avoided by the early start, and a small buffer noted for photocopies and travel to the kendra — the only real out-of-chart costs a direct filing carries. The spring outcome: four booklets by April at exactly the budgeted figure, and the summer’s visa applications starting on schedule. The counter-story they avoided is the season’s classic: the May-discovering family paying two Tatkal premiums (₹4,000 extra) for the same booklets, plus an agent’s “package” someone panicked into. The chart read early is a budget; read late, it’s a bill with premiums — the family calendar decides which.

Receipts and the Household Ledger — The Paper Side of the Fee

• One folder per member — the receipt PDFs filed beside the ARNs and letters; the money trail complete per application
• The dispute posture — gateway reference plus receipt answers every payment question official channels might raise
• The accounts entry — passport fees land in the household ledger like any planned expense; the ten-year cycle makes them predictable lines
• The audit’s money minute — the annual document audit glances the folder: receipts present, nothing outstanding, next cycle’s line forecast

Fee Changes Over Time — Staying Current Without Anxiety

Schedules revise occasionally, and the staying-current method is deliberately boring: the Fee Calculator reflects the live schedule the day you use it, the portal’s fee pages carry revisions when they happen, and NO legitimate change ever announces itself via SMS links, WhatsApp forwards, or calls demanding “difference amounts” on filed applications — the classic revision-scam frame. The filed application’s fee is settled at payment; revisions apply forward, not backward onto your receipt. The practical posture: run the calculator at each filing (this guide’s standing habit), ignore forwarded fee rumours entirely, and let the one authoritative source do the tracking your memory needn’t. Structures persist; numbers occasionally move; the calculator always knows — that’s the entire maintenance burden.

Five numbers, one calculator, one law — the passport’s money story fits on an index card, and every rupee beyond it belongs to someone selling confusion. Budget by the chart, pay through the gateway, file the receipt: the fee layer, closed cleanly, every time.

The Chart as Family Knowledge — Teaching the Numbers

The fee chart spreads best as household literacy: the five lines taught at one dinner table — standard, jumbo, Tatkal premium, minor, lost — plus the one law (paid once, at filing, online) inoculate every member against the quote-inflation ecosystem, and the calculator’s bookmark in the family group makes verification a shared reflex. The elder-specific framing: no official ever calls about passport money; every fee shows on the government site before it’s paid; and the grandchildren run the calculator whenever a number needs checking. Households that hold this literacy stop being the market the markup industry prices for — and the ₹5,500 the worked example saved is the per-application dividend, recurring every decade, forever.

Run the calculator before your next filing — two minutes now, and the gateway’s figure will greet you as an old friend.

Conclusion

The fee chart is short, public, and final: base per booklet, premium per scheme, paid once online — and every number beyond it is someone else’s margin.

Run the calculator, pay at filing, save the receipt — and let the chart be the only prices you ever pay.

FAQs

1. What is the passport fee in 2026?

₹1,500 (36 pages) / ₹2,000 (60 pages) for standard 10-year applications per the current schedule — the portal’s Fee Calculator confirms your case.

2. How much extra is Tatkal?

A flat ₹2,000 over the applicable base fee.

3. Are there charges after the online payment?

No — the fee covers everything, including dispatch; later “charges” demands are fraud.