November 24 Deadline: Egyptians Abroad Can't Travel Without New Digitised Passports

On Monday, Egypt’s foreign minister announced that they will do everything possible to meet the November 24th deadline of issuing digitalised passports to Egyptian living abroad.

The Foreign Minister’s assistant, Amr Awad, is calling on all Egyptians living abroad, especially in the Gulf region, to contact their consulates to receive new passports as non-digitised passports are set to expire on 24^th of November. Egyptian digitised passports were introduced in 2008, and according to regulations set by the United Nations’ International Civil Aviation organisation, any passports that isn’t machine readable will no longer be valid for international travel after the 24^th of November.

In the past few months, Awad claims that the foreign ministry has issued around 130,000 new electronic passports. Former Foreign Ministry spokesman Badr Abdel-Atty said in July that some Egyptian embassies house many passports yet to be picked up. For example the Kuwait-based Egyptian embassy still has 3,200 new digitalised passports to be collected.

If you are in need of a new digitised Egyptian passport, we recommend checking with your embassy ASAP.