KSh 12,500 To Leave Your Own Country: How the State Has Turned Passports into a Luxury

Quietly, without public notice or justification, the Government has taken a deeply consequential decision: it has withdrawn the 50-page passport option from the eCitizen platform, leaving the 66-page passport—costing KSh 12,500—as the only standard passport available to new applicants.

This is not an isolated incident. In July last year, the 34-page passport was abolished. Now, with the removal of the 50-page option, the State has systematically dismantled every affordable pathway to legal international travel for ordinary Kenyans.

What remains is a blunt reality: if you do not have KSh 12,500, you cannot get a passport.

The only circumstance under which a 50-page passport is still issued is as a replacement for mutilated or lost passports. It is not available for first-time applicants, renewals, students, job seekers, or small business owners. This is not policy refinement. It is exclusion by design.

The consequences of this decision are severe and far-reaching. A passport is not a luxury item. It is a basic instrument of mobility, opportunity, and economic participation. By raising the minimum cost of access, the Government has effectively priced out low-income Kenyans, particularly the youth, casual workers, and first-time job seekers who depend on regional and international opportunities to escape unemployment.

This move directly undermines Kenya’s own rhetoric around labour export, diaspora remittances, and global competitiveness. You cannot, on one hand, celebrate remittances as a pillar of the economy while, on the other, erect financial barriers that prevent citizens from leaving the country legally to work.

Businesses and institutions are not spared either. Companies that deploy staff across borders, NGOs operating regionally, and startups seeking international partnerships now face higher administrative and operational costs. The policy punishes productivity and enterprise while protecting no clear public interest.

More troubling is the lack of transparency. No public explanation has been offered. No parliamentary debate. No stakeholder engagement. No cost breakdown to justify why lower-page passports are suddenly unviable. Public services cannot be reclassified as premium products by stealth.

A government that believes in inclusion does not monetize citizenship documents. A government serious about youth empowerment does not turn passports into elite commodities. And a government that respects its people does not make it harder for them to seek opportunity beyond its borders.

This policy must be reversed immediately.

The 34-page and 50-page passport categories must be reinstated, and the State must publicly explain why they were removed in the first place. Access to a passport should be determined by need and eligibility, not by the size of one’s wallet.

Until then, the message being sent is clear and dangerous: movement is for those who can afford it, and opportunity is reserved for the few. That is not governance. That is exclusion.

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