A truck transports newly arrived passport booklets to the Directorate of Civil Registry and Immigration. Photo: Michael Daniel.

The Directorate of Civil Registry and Immigration has announced the arrival of an additional 37,500 passport booklets to address the shortage of the travel documents.

Major General Elia Costa, the Director General of Civil Registry, Nationality, Passports and Immigration (DCRNPI), announced the new passport booklets in an exclusive interview with Eye Radio on Friday.

General Costa said all categories of passports are now available after months of shortages that disrupted essential services.

He said the additional 37,500 regular passport booklets have increased stocks to levels that will sustain passport issuance until December 2026, and possibly beyond.

“We have received another passport booklet, which is about 37,500 passport booklet, regular passport booklet. So, we have diplomatic passport enough, we have a special passport, we have official passport, we have a business passport. All the types of the passport are now available in our stock, which will take us up to December 2026, maybe beyond of December,” he said.

He added that the directorate also has adequate supplies of diplomatic, official, special and business passports, as well as nearly 200,000 nationality cards.

“So, that is an information to the citizens of South Sudan that we have no problem now concerning the issue of passport in all types of the passport, plus nationality. We have enough stock, almost 200,000, which is now in the stock also. We’ll have no problem within this year, up to December2026,” he added.

The director said the directorate is preparing to introduce modern passport technology to improve service delivery, adding that document security systems continue to evolve around the world.

The announcement marks a significant improvement from the beginning of 2026, when the country experienced a severe shortage of all passport categories.

Passport issuance resumed in mid-January after new supplies arrived, with authorities prioritizing students, medical patients and South Sudanese stranded abroad.

In May, the directorate unveiled five new production machines, including two for passport printing and three for processing nationality and identity documents, to reduce processing delays.

In June, authorities received another shipment of 105,000 nationality cards and 3,600 passport booklets, while also advancing plans to introduce online passport applications for South Sudanese living in Egypt.

Earlier this month, the directorate announced the arrival of an additional 5,000 passport booklets, reducing processing time to about three days.