Passport surge
ORANJESTAD - Due to the increase in 2014 of the validity period (from 5 years to 10 years) of the Dutch (national) passport for persons older than 18 years, a drastic increase is foreseen this year in the number of applications for a national passport from people whose passport expires in 2024.
This results in longer waiting times for passport applications at the Aruba Department of Civil Status and Population Registry (hereafter Censo). The waiting time for the shipment of passports from the supplier in the Netherlands has also become longer. In October 2023, Censo already disclosed this and warned against applying for national passports on time.
EMERGENCY PASSPORTS
An emergency passport application at the consular department of the Cabinet of the Governor of Aruba is also of little use in such cases. This is only possible in real emergency situations (think of medical deployments through AZV) and is not an alternative to not receiving a national passport on time. The emergency passport policy is strictly applied by the consular department of the Cabinet of the Governor of Aruba.
LONGER WAITING TIMES CONSULAR DEPARTMENT
The problems outlined above are also reflected in the waiting times at the consular department of the Cabinet of the Governor. This concerns not only the application for a national passport or emergency passport at the consular department, but also other products such as (Schengen) visa applications and applications as part of the option and naturalization procedure.
