Japanese passport pages used for visas and entry or exit stamps.
13:24 JST, December 31, 2022
The Foreign Ministry is turning to Twitter and other methods in a rush to inform the public that the service for adding pages to the passport where visas and entry or exit permits are stamped will be ended on March 27.
According to the ministry, many countries have abolished the supplying of additional pages from the viewpoint of preventing forgeries. Among the Group of Seven (G7) advanced nations, Japan is the lone country that still provides the service.
Under the current system, when there are no longer blank pages for visa stamps remaining in a passport, 40 pages can be added for the charge of ¥2,500.
After the service is abolished, a new passport with the same expiration dates as the original will be issued at a charge of ¥6,000. If there is only a short time until the passport was to expire anyway, it can be renewed for ¥16,000 for a 10-year period or ¥11,000 for five years.
The ministry warns that if a valid visa is contained in a passport that has run out of blank pages, the holder may need to carry both the old and new passports because the visa can not be transferred to the new one.
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