Filipino workers and their family members have paid more than SR17.6 million to the Philippine mission in Saudi Arabia in 2014 for passport services including the ordering of first-time passports, the replacement of lost passports and the renewal of old ones.

The Philippine embassy disclosed this amount recently, adding that it has increased its previous year’s passport services, which had 73,743 passport service cases in 2014, compared to 73,352 cases in 2013.

A source from the embassy said that an ordinary passport renewal costs SR240, while lost passports will incur a fee of SR360, plus SR100 for the associated affidavit. For an e-Passport, it could cost the client SR600 in addition to SR100 for the affidavit.

“The embassy has more than doubled its passport service cases in 2010, at which time there were only 34,482, and has continued to increase passport services every year for the past five years”, the embassy revealed in a statement released yesterday.

“We are proud that we are able to significantly increase the public’s access to passport services here in Riyadh, and during outreach missions outside of Riyadh, even though we have maintained the same number of passport encoding machines since the start of the e-Passport process in 2011,” Ambassador Ezzedin Tago said.

The embassy advises all Filipinos to ensure that their passport is valid for at least 9 months if they plant to use it for travel, as most countries require that passports are valid for months beyond the intended dates of use and travel.

In 2011, the embassy implemented an appointment system of time slots for passport encoding at the embassy and during consular outreach missions or the “Embassy on Wheels” program. At present, the appointment system is controlled through the embassy’s website.

Applicants are also advised that they should claim their passport within 6 months of its issuance, as the embassy regularly returns unclaimed passports back to the Department of Foreign Affairs if it is unclaimed for over 6 months.

The embassy recently increased its public waiting spaces for passport and consular applicants with the use of the Mabini Hall and the majority of its lobby for clients to accommodate more seating space inside the building.