In 4 days or 40: Location decides how fast your passport reaches you

Bengaluru: How long an Indian citizen has to wait for a passport depends heavily upon where the person lives. Data from the ministry of external affairs shows average passport issuance time under the normal category in 2025 ranged from as low as four-five working days in Goa and parts of Kerala, to as high as 40 working days in Chhattisgarh's Raipur region. Even within the same state, disparities persist across regional passport offices (RPOs). Karnataka's Bengaluru RPO shows a mixed trend. After issuing passports in just seven days on an average in 2023, timelines lengthened to 15 days in 2025, suggesting higher demand than a slowdown.
In the south, Kerala remains among the fastest, with RPOs in Cochin and Kozhikode issuing passports in about five working days on an average under the normal category.Tamil Nadu also performed relatively well, with Chennai averaging 11 days, though Coimbatore took more than 20 days –– nearly double its 2023 time frame. Western India presents a contrasting picture, with Goa continuing to lead with a four-day average, while Maharashtra's large urban centres revealed stress. As a case in point, Mumbai issued passports in about 10 days in 2025, while Nagpur averaged 22 days, and Pune took more than 12 days. In comparison, eastern and central regions face longer waits. Odisha's Bhubaneswar RPO averaged 32 days in 2025, though this was still an improvement from 40 days in 2024. Chhattisgarh's Raipur remains the slowest, touching 40 days in 2025 for the normal category. While the Tatkaal service continues to clock faster turnaround across states, typically within one to six working days, disparities do exist. For instance, Raipur took up to 14 days under Tatkaal in 2025, while states such as Goa, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu cleared Tatkaal passports in one to three days, and Karnataka took four days on an average. Police Verification While the police verification phase is excluded from passport issuance timelines, applicants noted increasing delays at the verification stage. As of Dec 1, 2025, nearly 2.8 lakh applications across India were awaiting police verification for more than 30 days. Maharashtra alone accounted for more than 1.2 lakh pending applications, followed by Jammu and Kashmir at more than 56,000, West Bengal at nearly 29,500, and Manipur at over 15,000. In contrast, Gujarat, Goa, and Himachal Pradesh reported fewer than 50 pending applications, while Karnataka recorded around 800. According to MEA, "The launch of mPassport app has enabled expeditious submission of the Police Verification Report (PVR), digitally and directly from the police station itself." Multiple Passports Grievance data shows between 2023 and 2025, the single largest category of complaints nationwide related to police verification reports not being completed or passports not issued even after PVR receipt, accounting for more than 76,000 complaints. Even as some states report really quick issuance time, MEA has stressed that speed has not come at the cost of 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. According to MEA, upgraded Passport Seva Project 2.0 has introduced stronger duplicate-detection mechanisms to address this risk.