Two weeks from now, every new passport applicant in Pakistan will get an e-passport. There will be no machine-readable option, whether the application is filed in Lahore or at the consulate in New York.

The government says the change will curb fraud. Whether it also makes getting a passport easier is a separate question, and the answer depends on work that has little to do with the chip.

What changes on October 15

Pakistan will stop issuing machine-readable passports nationwide from October 15, 2026, according to a public notice from the Consulate General of Pakistan in New York. Reports say passport offices have been told to stop processing new machine-readable applications from that date, which makes October 14 the last day to apply for one.

Passports already issued are not affected right away. They stay valid until their expiry dates, but they will not be renewed in the same format. Holders will apply for an e-passport when the time comes.

A short runway for a large change

The decision itself is only a few months old. On June 19, a meeting chaired by the interior minister at the Passport and Immigration Headquarters in Islamabad decided in principle to move fully to e-passports. That was 118 days before the cutoff.

The timeline was not settled for much of that period. An August report said no cutoff date had been set. A circular to passport offices followed in September, and the New York consulate published the date on September 25.

A change that touches every future passport holder at home and abroad arrived with about four months of notice. That is quick, and it puts pressure on the offices and missions that must apply it.

Two reasons for one decision

The government has given two reasons, and they point in different directions.

The interior minister said at the June meeting that a complete move to e-passports would eliminate fraud and forgery in passport issuance. The chip supports that aim. According to the passport directorate, it stores a facial image, personal details, a unique identification number, and a digital signature, following ICAO standards. Pakistan’s e-passports also carry laser engraving and infrared and ultraviolet security features.

The New York notice makes a different promise. It says the transition should make immigration processing faster and more efficient.

A harder-to-forge document answers the first goal. It does not answer the second. Speed depends on queues, payments, processing times, and delivery, and the notice gives no figures for any of them.

The rest of the plan

Those operational pieces were part of the same June meeting. The government decided to run all passport offices on a cashless system from the first of the following month and to shift online applications to the PakID app. Officials also said preparatory work for home delivery of passports, inside Pakistan and abroad, was complete.

This is why the October 15 date matters beyond the format of one document. Applying for, paying for, and receiving a passport are all moving to digital channels at once. If any link in that chain fails, applicants will feel it before they notice the chip.

What overseas Pakistanis should do

The rule applies at missions abroad, where renewals often happen close to travel dates, visa deadlines, and school terms. Anyone with a passport that expires soon should check requirements with their nearest mission before applying.

The notice does not list e-passport fees or processing times. Those details will decide whether the change is a minor adjustment or a real hurdle for people who have to renew on a deadline.

The test comes after October 15

A cutoff is easy to announce and easy to measure. A smooth passport office is harder to build and harder to judge from the outside.

Pakistan has set a firm date for the chip. The less visible work will decide how citizens experience the change: the payment systems, the application platform, and the delivery network. The clearest way to judge the reform would be for the passport directorate to publish processing and delivery times in the weeks after the switch.

Until then, the date shows that the government is serious. It does not yet show that the system is ready.