The New Year holidays are approaching, which means that the time for rest is just around the corner! Many citizens dream of traveling abroad for the holidays, but often haphazard “vacationers” have problems with documents. If one is not given a visa to enter another country, then the question arises for others: “How to extend my passport?”.
Of course, all bureaucratic issues need to be resolved not a month before departure, but much earlier, but for those who did not take timely steps to resolve problems with documents, there are ways to travel abroad as soon as possible.
First of all, it is worth clarifying that under current legislation it is impossible to extend a passport. There are no procedures to keep an old document with a visa not yet closed. It completely loses its strength upon expiration and is subject to mandatory replacement, so initially abandon the idea to extend your passport, even for a lot of money. The visa problem can be solved in such a way that upon entering the country you present a new valid passport and a visa from an old document. Details should be clarified before departure, so as not to be in a difficult situation.
As you probably know, for some time now the old-style document has been replaced with a biometric passport, the validity of which is ten years. Biometric documents have been very popular for several years in Europe. With the help of them, government agencies have the opportunity to identify the owner with maximum accuracy when passing customs control and in any other situations.
Since it is no longer possible to extend a passport at the present time, we will examine what innovations have now appeared in the process of obtaining a document with which we can travel abroad, and how much it will cost. If you decide to make a biometric passport yourself, through government agencies, if you have several months in reserve and a lot of patience, then you will need 2500 rubles (from 14 years old) or 1200 rubles (from 0 to 14 years). For those who do not want to sit in line at the OVIR and wait for several months, there are numerous companies involved in obtaining passports as soon as possible. The prices of such firms vary depending on the terms, but on average they are about several tens of thousands of rubles.
Documents for the extension of a passport and obtaining a new passport must be prepared as follows: application (in several copies); photos; passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation; employment record (if any); military ID (for men); foreign passport issued to you earlier; state duty receipt. For those who are not yet 18 years old, the necessary list is as follows: statement; the photo; birth certificate (copy and original); passport of the child and his parent or guardian; child’s international passport issued earlier; receipt.
Although it is currently not possible to extend a passport, there are options for obtaining various types of passports. In addition to biometric documents, old-style documents that are valid for 5 years have been preserved in everyday life. OVIR advises not to issue a passport “the old fashioned way” and to use new services, but nevertheless, its action has not yet been terminated, it has full legal force on a par with biometric.
If you are already abroad (you live, work, study, etc.) and you need to extend your passport in a foreign country, you should contact the consulate of the Russian Federation at the location.