The Rwandan community abroad can now apply for national identity cards and e-Passports via the Irembo portal, the Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration (DGIE) has announced.

The development comes to assist Rwandans living in foreign countries to get their East African e-Passports.

The DGIE started the issuance of East Africa e-Passport in June 2019, but the Rwandan community abroad without national ID cards could not apply.

However, in collaboration with the National Identification Agency (NIDA) and Irembo Ltd, DGIE has developed a system that will allow them to apply and acquire Rwandan National ID and e-Passport from the Embassies.

"This was implemented to facilitate the Rwandan Community abroad without National ID cards,” read a statement issued by the DGIE on Monday, February 21.

The applicants’ biometric data will be captured from the nearest Rwandan Embassy and be used for the processing of both ID card and e-Passport.

"The DGIE encourages all Rwandan citizens to apply for an e-Passport at their earliest possible opportunity before the planned phased out of Machine Readable Passports scheduled on 27th June 2022,” the statement read.

The East African e-Passport is in compliance with the new East African Community technical specifications as well as International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Other EAC countries, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have also commenced issuing the electronic passports.

Among the new features, it contains a microchip making it tamper-proof, as well as enabling it to store biometric data for the fast identification of the holder.

Prices of the e-Passports:

There are several categories of the e-Passport. An ordinary passport for minors valid for two years costs Rwf25,000, while that of 5 years (with 50 pages) costs Rwf75,000.

An ordinary 10-year passport with 66 pages costs Rwf100,000, a service passport with a 5-year validity costs Rwf15,000, and a diplomatic passport costs Rwf50,000.