The Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has an­nounced a re­vised fee struc­ture for ser­vices pro­vid­ed by the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion, ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2026.

The ad­just­ment, made un­der the Im­mi­gra­tion (Amend­ment) Reg­u­la­tions, 2025, forms part of the Gov­ern­ment’s on­go­ing ef­fort to mod­ernise na­tion­al bor­der man­age­ment and im­prove ser­vice de­liv­ery for cit­i­zens, res­i­dents and oth­er clients.

In a me­dia re­lease, the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said for near­ly two decades, many fees for im­mi­gra­tion ser­vices have re­mained un­changed, with the last sig­nif­i­cant re­vi­sion oc­cur­ring in 2007.

Since then, the op­er­a­tional land­scape of the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion has evolved, mak­ing the ad­just­ments nec­es­sary to align with the mod­ern costs of pro­vid­ing se­cure, high-qual­i­ty ser­vices and to sup­port tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The Min­istry em­pha­sised its com­mit­ment to digi­tis­ing all pub­lic-fac­ing ser­vices to fa­cil­i­tate ease of ac­cess.

Planned im­prove­ments in­clude en­hanced on­line por­tals for e-Visa and e-Stu­dent Per­mit ap­pli­ca­tions, al­low­ing re­al-time track­ing and on­line is­suance; the in­tro­duc­tion of cash­less trans­ac­tions through se­cure e-pay­ment plat­forms to re­duce in-per­son cash han­dling; and the mod­erni­sa­tion of in­fra­struc­ture with cloud-based sys­tems and in­ter­op­er­a­ble frame­works link­ing pub­lic agen­cies to en­able faster pro­cess­ing and stronger da­ta se­cu­ri­ty.

Un­der the re­vised sched­ule, stan­dard adult pass­ports (ages 16-59) will cost $500, while 48-page busi­ness pass­ports are set at $700.

Ex­pe­dit­ed pass­port ser­vice will car­ry an ad­di­tion­al fee of $600 for pri­or­i­ty pro­cess­ing.

Re­plac­ing lost or mis­placed valid pass­ports for adults and chil­dren will now cost $2,000, re­flect­ing the high ad­min­is­tra­tive and se­cu­ri­ty cost of is­su­ing se­cure trav­el doc­u­ments.

The Gov­ern­ment con­firmed that es­sen­tial ser­vices for vul­ner­a­ble groups re­main free of charge.

Pass­ports for se­nior cit­i­zens aged 60 and over, first-is­sue pass­ports for in­fants un­der two years, and re­place­ment pass­ports for chil­dren un­der two years will con­tin­ue to be pro­vid­ed at no cost.

Speak­ing on the re­vi­sions, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty said, "The de­ci­sion to re­vise these fees was not tak­en light­ly. How­ev­er, it is a nec­es­sary step to en­sure our Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion has the re­sources to pro­vide world-class ser­vice. This is not mere­ly about rev­enue; it is about in­vest­ing in the tech­nol­o­gy and se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture that pro­tects our bor­ders and sim­pli­fies the lives of our cit­i­zens. By mov­ing to­ward a ful­ly dig­i­tal, cash­less sys­tem, we are re­mov­ing the bu­reau­crat­ic hur­dles of the past and build­ing a more re­silient Trinidad and To­ba­go."