Passport Processing Times in India Show Dramatic Regional Variations
How long an Indian citizen must wait for a passport depends significantly on their location, according to recent data from the Ministry of External Affairs. The average passport issuance time under the normal category in 2025 ranged from as low as four to five working days in efficient regions to as high as forty working days in slower areas, revealing substantial geographical disparities in administrative efficiency.
Southern States Lead in Efficiency
In southern India, Kerala continues to set the benchmark for rapid passport processing. Regional Passport Offices (RPOs) in Cochin and Kozhikode issue passports in approximately five working days on average under the normal category. Tamil Nadu also demonstrates relatively strong performance, with Chennai averaging eleven days, though Coimbatore experienced longer waits exceeding twenty days—nearly double its 2023 timeframe.
Karnataka's Bengaluru RPO presents a mixed picture. After achieving an average issuance time of just seven days in 2023, processing extended to fifteen days in 2025, indicating either increased demand or potential operational slowdowns.
Western and Central Regions Show Contrasting Results
Western India displays significant variation in passport processing efficiency. Goa maintains its leadership position with an impressive four-day average issuance time. Meanwhile, Maharashtra's major urban centers reveal processing stresses. Mumbai issued passports in about ten days in 2025, while Nagpur averaged twenty-two days, and Pune required more than twelve days.
Eastern and central regions generally face longer waiting periods. Odisha's Bhubaneswar RPO averaged thirty-two days in 2025, though this represented improvement from forty days in 2024. Chhattisgarh's Raipur remains the slowest processing center, reaching forty days in 2025 for normal category applications.
Tatkaal Service Also Shows Regional Disparities
While the Tatkaal service consistently delivers faster turnaround times across states—typically within one to six working days—significant variations persist. For instance, Raipur required up to fourteen days under Tatkaal in 2025, while states including Goa, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu cleared Tatkaal passports in just one to three days. Karnataka averaged four days for Tatkaal processing.
Police Verification Delays Compound Challenges
Although police verification phases are excluded from official passport issuance timelines, applicants report increasing delays at this crucial stage. As of December 1, 2025, nearly 2.8 lakh applications across India awaited police verification for more than thirty days.
Maharashtra alone accounted for more than 1.2 lakh pending applications, followed by Jammu and Kashmir with over 56,000, West Bengal with nearly 29,500, and Manipur exceeding 15,000. In contrast, Gujarat, Goa, and Himachal Pradesh reported fewer than fifty pending applications each, while Karnataka recorded approximately eight hundred.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs, "The launch of the mPassport app has enabled expeditious submission of the Police Verification Report (PVR), digitally and directly from the police station itself."
Complaint Patterns and Fraud Prevention Measures
Grievance data from 2023 to 2025 reveals that the single largest category of complaints nationwide related to incomplete police verification reports or passports not being issued even after PVR receipt, accounting for more than 76,000 complaints.
The Ministry emphasizes that processing speed has not compromised security scrutiny. Over the past five years, 1,343 complaints were received regarding individuals fraudulently obtaining multiple passports, with all such cases resulting in impounding or revocation under the Passports Act, 1967. The upgraded Passport Seva Project 2.0 has introduced stronger duplicate-detection mechanisms to address this risk effectively.
