IMPORTANT INFORMATION
1. The Department of Immigration rolled out issuance of the ePassport with effect from 1st September 2017. Holders of valid manual passports (dark-blue in colour) must replace it with an ePassport by 30th November 2022. After this date, all manual passports will be rendered invalid for travel.
2. Passport applicants who are 18 years old and above must be holders of a valid Kenya National Identity Card (click on the link to download the official statement of the Embassy for those with no ID cards) to be able to apply. Parents or court-appointed guardians who hold a valid Kenyan ID card can apply for their children who are under the age of 18.
3. If you do not have an ID card or you lost it and only have a (laminated) copy, you must obtain an original ID card first before applying for the ePassport.
4. The Kenya Embassy in Berlin does not issue ID cards. You must travel to Kenya or the Kenya High Commission in London to register and be issued the ID card.
5. All passport applications must be made on the Department of Immigration Services page www.ecitizen.go.ke. You will have to enter your ID card number to be able to register on eCitizen and then apply for the passport on the Department of Immigration Services page. The passport fee must also be made on the same page via the payment options available.
6. In order to register successfully, a verification code will be sent on the number you enter. Currently, the codes are only sent to Kenyan mobile phone numbers that have never been registered on eCitizen. You must therefore enter an active Kenyan number on the telephone number field (you can enter the number of a relative or friend who has never held a passport). Kindly note that the codes expire if not entered immediately.
7. Applicants who hold a manual passport should apply for a REPLACEMENT on eCitizen and not for a NEW PASSPORT!!!!
8. When entering foreign alphabet letters, e.g. Ä,Ö,Ü, these letters should be anglicized to AE, OE and UE. There should not be any commas or any other symbols on the application entries.
9. The payment options for the ePassport are indicated on eCitizen. If you do not have a credit card, a relative in Kenya can make the payment for on your behalf via MPESA or any of the other Kenyan mobile payment options.
10. You cannot make any corrections or edit your ePassport application once you have submitted it. Ensure therefore that all your details are correct before submitting the final data online.
11. Your ePassport photo will be captured at the Embassy. The 3 photos stated on the checklist are for file purposes only. Ensure that you appearance on the day adheres to the photo guidelines on the checklist.
12. All eCitizen inquiries should be directed to eCitizen (telephone: +254 780 206 206; email: support@ecitizen.go.ke).
13. If your passport has expired, and you do not have an ID card, you will be issued a one-way Emergency Travel Document by the Kenya Embassy accredited to your country of residence, in order to travel to Kenya to process the ID card.
(a) VALIDITY OF A PASSPORT
Kenyan passports are issued with a validity of ten years and are non-renewable. They are not available beyond ten years from the original date of issue. If at any time a passport contains no further space for visas, bears incorrect information, is lost or damaged, a new passport must be obtained. The same applies for if any official changes are required e.g. a change of name after marriage.
It is important to start the process of replacing your passport 6 months before expiry, in order to have a valid passport by the time your residence permit or old passport is set to expire.
The Embassy does not issue temporary passports.
Caution: Passports are valuable documents and should not be altered in any way or allowed to pass into possession of unauthorized person. If lost, withdrawn or destroyed the fact and circumstances should be immediately reported to the Kenya Embassy and the local police. Under such circumstances, new passports can only be issued after exhaustive enquiries have been done.
DO NOT BOOK ANY TRIP OR HOLIDAY ABROAD (EXCEPT TO KENYA) UNTIL YOU HAVE AN EPASSPORT.
(b) RECOMMENDER
All passport applications must be recommended by the holder of a valid Kenyan ID card, who is not related to the applicant. YOU CANNOT RECOMMEND YOURSELF, YOUR CHILD OR ANY OF YOUR RELATIVES!!!
If your recommender is not in your area of residence, you must send him/her the recommender's page to fill in and send it back to you per post or email as a clear scanned PDF document together with the front and back of his/her Kenyan ID card as stated on the checklist.
AN APPLICATION THAT HAS NOT BEEN RECOMMENDED WILL BE REJECTED.
(c) LOST PASSPORT REPLACEMENT
If you happen to have lost your passport, contact your local lost and found office to see if the passport was found and deposited there. You can also email the Embassy (immigration@kenyaembassyberlin.de) to find out if the passport might have been sent to us. If your search remains futile, you will have to report its loss at your local police station and then proceed to a Notary Public to swear an Affidavit on the loss.
The Kenyan passport remains property of the Kenyan government and should be handled with extreme care and kept safe at all times. You are advised to only carry coloured photocopies of it and of your residence permit (if it is stuck inside your passport) for identification purposes. Passports should not be carried to night clubs or any social gathering, since these are the most common reported areas of loss.
(d) APPLYING FOR A FIRST PASSPORT FOR YOUR CHILD
If you are the holder of a valid Kenyan passport or your child was born while you are still a Kenyan, you can apply for a passport for your child by filing the relevant application on eCitizen.
Children who have other nationalities must provide the passport of the other nationality too when applying for the Kenyan passport. If the passport of the other nationality is not available, you will have to provide proof from the other country stating that the child does not hold a passport of that country.
The application must be accompanied by the International Birth Certificate of the child that has been certified by the issuing authority.
(e) CHANGING SURNAME
All change of name should be made under application No. 3. CHANGE OF PARTICULARS on eCitizen. Ensure you only enter the names that should appear in the new passport when filling in the online application.
Change of name in Kenya is only possible in following cases:
(i) AFTER MARRIAGE
Women who have married and taken up their husband's surname must apply for the change of name on their Kenyan passport too to avoid complications in the future. You will have to fill in your names as stated on the marriage certificate, on the online passport application form.
Note that for hyphenated surnames, your Kenyan surname should always appear before the German surname you are adopting.
(ii) THROUGH DEED POLL
If you changed your name through a deed poll, you will have to submit a certified copy of the deed poll and the Kenya Gazette Notice of the name change in addition to other documents on the relevant checklist.
(iii) CHANGE OF NAME FOR KENYAN CHILDREN
A change of name for Kenyan children who are adopted can only be made if an official adoption is filed for and approved by the High Court of Kenya and an official change of name through deed poll done and a Kenya Gazette Notice of the same is issued.
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Development also has to issue a Letter of NO OBJECTION to ADOPTION. You will have to provide certified copies of the High Court of Kenya documents as well as certified copies of the name change documents and Letter of NO OBJECTION as stated above.
(f) HOW TO BOOK A BIOMETRICS APPOINTMENT
Once you have successfully filled in the relevant passport application and paid for it online, upload the eCitizen-generated application PDF form and upload it on the required field together with other required uploads. It is only after uploading the required documents that you should book an appointment through the booking link on this website.
Download the relevant application checklist below and after obtaining all the necessary requirements, book an appointment to submit the application and biometrics capture in Berlin.
Booking Requirements:
- You MUST first apply and pay for the epassport on www.ecitizen.go.ke
- Ensure that you enter your eCitizen EPP1/CPP1 application reference as follows EPP1-XXXXXXXXX (enter the number) or CPP1-XXXXXXXXX (enter the number) on the required field when booking the appointment. Appointments booked without entering this important reference will be cancelled.
- Ensure that you enter the name of the applicant whose biometrics will be captured on the booking portal and not of the person booking.
- Each applicant must be booked for an appointment slot separately.
- Each applicant must bring the documents that are stated on the relevant checklist below, in the order specified.
- You must have an original Kenyan ID card and birth certificate among other requirements to be able to apply for the ePassport in Berlin. Attempting to appear without these originals will be a futile attempt.
- Download the RELEVANT checklist from the confirmation email for your biometrics appointment.
(g) DURATION OF PROCESSING
The epassport is processed in Kenya and sent back to the Embassy within 4-6 weeks. There are cases that can take longer due to several factors.
Once your passport is received in Berlin, the notification RECEIVING will appear on your ecitizen account when you click on the submitted application.
(h) HOW TO RECEIVE YOUR NEW PASSPORT AFTER BIOMETRICS
APPLICANTS FROM GERMANY
Your epassport will be posted to you via DHL. Send the following to the Embassy via secured mail:
1. Your current passport
2. A photocopy of the Photo Token receipt you received on the day of biometrics
3. For sending the passports back to you: 1 DHL EXPRESS DOMESTIC End of Day shipping label for Germany(click here to access it). Buy this exact shipping label online and ensure you have entered the shipping details FROM: Embassy/ TO: You.
SELECT EXPRESS ENVELOPE PACKAGING. DO NOT SCHEDULE PICKUP AND PAY VIA THE ONLINE PAYMENT OPTIONS AVAILABLE
4. An A4-size padded envelope with the DHL shipping/transport label stuck on it.
PASSPORTS WILL NOT BE DISPATCHED TO CLIENTS USING ANY OTHER METHOD EXCEPT THROUGH DHL EXPRESS AS CLEARLY STATED.
Insert all of the 4 items above into another envelope and send to the Embassy via DHL.
APPLICANTS FROM OUTSIDE GERMANY
You should send the following to the Embassy via any courier service of your choice:
1. Your current passport
2. A photocopy of the Photo Token receipt you received on the day of biometrics
3. For sending the passports back to you: 1 DHL EXPRESS ENVELOPE End of Day shipping label for your country (click here to access it). Buy this exact shipping label online and ensure you have entered the shipping details FROM: Embassy/ TO: You.
SELECT EXPRESS ENVELOPE PACKAGING. DO NOT SCHEDULE PICKUP AND PAY VIA THE ONLINE PAYMENT OPTIONS AVAILABLE
4. An A4-size padded envelope with the DHL shipping/transport label stuck on it.
Insert all of the 4 items above into another envelope and send to the Embassy via any courier service of your choice.
(i) KENYANS WITHOUT IDENTITY DOCUMENTS
If you were born in Kenya but have never held a Kenyan passport or ID card or only have a recently issued Kenyan birth certificate, you cannot apply for a Kenyan passport. If you are able to prove your Kenyan citizenship to the Embassy, you may be issued a one-way Emergency Travel Document to travel to Kenya to procure your identity documents.
If you are sent by your local Foreigner's Authority to apply for a passport or Travel Document and you fail to bring the application documents, you WILL NOT be issued any confirmation letter as proof that you were at the Embassy.
(j) EMERGENCY TRAVEL DOCUMENT
If you have to travel to Kenya and do not have a valid passport, you may be issued an Emergency Travelling Document to allow you to travel to Kenya. Click here for the checklist of requirements.