Australian Passport Information Guide

Passports are an essential legal document needed in order to travel to a foreign country. If you are a citizen of Australia and wish to travel to another country, you need to have passport in order to fulfill your wish. Not only is this, passports also an evidence of citizenship and one’s identity in other country and in your own country as well.

Passports in Australia are issued by the Australian passport office which is under the supervision of department of foreign affairs and trade. An application form has to be filled in to apply for the passport. This form can be procured from any of the Australian post office or from the passport office. You can also obtain these forms by logging on to the passport office’s website. These forms can only be downloaded from the website but can’t be submitted online. Submission of these forms has to be in person, there is an interview for obtaining a passport while submitting he application form at the passport office or at any Australian post office. Along with the completely filled up application form make sure to bring the documents that are mentioned in the form. The documents include copy of birth certificates, identity proof, Australian citizenship certificate, photographs, and the address proof.

Application forms have to be submitted along with the fee that varies from passport bearer’s age. The fee for an adult is 208 $ for a standard 32 page passport. This passport is valid till ten years from the date of the issue of the passport. For children and senior citizens the 32 page passport costs 104 $ with a validity of five years from the date of issue of the passport. For those who likes to travel frequently whether for traveling or some business purpose, a 64 page passport is available and a fee of 312$ for an adult and 150$ for a child. The fee charged at the time of application for the passport is non-refundable fees.

In the Australian system of issuing the passports the fee for the renewals or for applying for a new passport remains the same. It usually takes 10 working days starting from the day application for the passport is being submitted to process the application by the Australian passport office. Further eight days period is required to allow it travel through the postal services. Don’t have 18 days or more time to wait for the passport? There’s a way out to this problem of yours. By shelling an amount of 78$ as a ‘priority processing fee’ you can reduce the 18 day long procedure to just 2 working business days.

Australian passports these days are equipped with a microchip. Microchip helps in retaining and simplifying the identity related issues of the passport owner and helps in avoiding any kind of frauds. The concept of biometric passport technology was first endeavored by Australia. The microchip contains information like passport owner’s photograph, birth date , date of issue and expiry of the passport, nationality, passport number all in the digitized form.

Always carry your passport along with you whenever you are planning to have a tour.