Passport agent kaise bane: what you can legally charge for

Plenty of walk-ins at a small-town counter aren't asking about a holiday. They want to know passport agent kaise bane, or more plainly: can you just get their passport made? The shop two doors down already calls itself an "authorised passport agent" and charges a few thousand rupees a file, so you're wondering what your own counter can legally charge for.

The honest answer: there's no registration to get, so nobody selling this is actually "authorised." What you can sell is real paperwork help, priced on two clean lines, for clients walking in confused by the portal.

There is no licence or authorisation to get

Recognised agents lost the right to submit passport applications for clients when the Passport Seva Project replaced the old system. In Gujarat, the Regional Passport Officer's letter of 6 January 2012 set the cut-off at 31 January 2012, as the new Passport Seva Kendras opened. Two associations of recognised passport agents in Gujarat challenged it and lost: the Gujarat High Court held that the old recognition created no vested right or legitimate expectation that the system would continue, since the new policy was made in the public interest and for national security, with personal appearance, fingerprints and photographs now mandatory (Association of Recognized Passport Agents of Gujarat v. Union of India, Gujarat HC, 2012). As of October 2026, the "Say No to Touts" note on the Passport Seva portal says the Government has not authorised any intermediary to arrange an urgent appointment or faster delivery, or to give such assurances.

So "passport agent kaise bane" has an honest answer: you can't, not as a licensed status. But that same January 2012 letter, as recorded in the judgment, said an applicant who has difficulty filling the form online or checking its status "may seek assistance from travel agents." That's the gap you work in: form help, not authorisation.

What a counter can honestly sell

A disclosed, separately priced assistance service is legitimate. That means setting up the account on the client's own email and mobile, filling the online form, and checking it against ID and address proof. It also covers preparing a document checklist and any annexure the case needs (a parent's declaration for a minor, a lost-passport affidavit), checking the extra Tatkaal documents, and running the portal's own Fee Calculator before you quote. Round it off with booking the appointment at your RPO's release time and a short briefing on what to carry and what to check at Counter A.

Price the work, not the form. When MEA took passport services to Common Services Centres in 2014, CSCs were to fill and upload the form, pay the fee and book the appointment at a "nominal charge not exceeding Rs. 100" (MEA press release, 2014). That figure is from 2014 and no current CSC rate could be verified, so don't quote it as today's. It only shows the bare clerical step was always cheap: your fee has to buy the checking, the annexures and the briefing on top of it.

What only the passport office, and the police, control

Three things sit entirely outside your counter, and promising any of them is the tout problem MEA keeps warning about. Personal appearance is mandatory for every applicant, infants included.

The Passport Issuing Authority takes photos, biometrics and the grant decision in the applicant's own presence at the PSK (MEA General Advisory); you cannot go instead of them. Applicant data goes electronically to the State Police for verification, and the dispatch times in MEA's instruction booklet (normal with no police verification needed: expected on the third working day after submission; Tatkaal with no police verification: within one working day) are expectations, not promises. Payment is fixed too: online payment is mandatory to book, Tatkaal applicants pay the entire fee online at that point, Tatkaal is presently not available at a POPSK, the portal entertains no refund claims, and an appointment can be rescheduled or cancelled only twice within a year of the first appointment date.

Careful: Never touch the content of a client's file to make it "fit", not even a date or an address. Knowingly giving false information, or suppressing material information, to get a passport is punishable under section 12(1)(b) of the Passports Act, 1967 with up to two years' imprisonment, a fine of up to ₹5,000, or both. Section 12(2) gives anyone who abets it the same punishment if the offence follows from the abetment, your desk included.

Price it on two lines, from the fee table that changed on 1 July 2026

The Passport Seva portal says fees were revised with effect from 1 July 2026; the new figures are in Table 4 of MEA's Instruction Booklet V3.0:

Document	Government fee (₹)
Fresh/re-issue, 36 pages, 10-year	2,500
Fresh/re-issue, 60 pages, 10-year	3,500
Minor (below 18), 36 pages	1,750
Police Clearance Certificate	750
Tatkaal add-on, any passport category	2,500

A 10% rebate on the basic passport fee applies on fresh applications only, for minors aged 8 or below and seniors above 60. Still quoting the pre-July table (₹1,500 adult, ₹1,000 minor, ₹2,000 Tatkaal add-on)? Stop. An all-in price below ₹2,500 for an adult fresh passport, or below ₹5,000 for an adult Tatkaal one, is now under the government fee alone.

Quote the government fee and your service fee as two separate lines, never one lumped number. Easiest: the client pays the government fee directly on the portal from their own card or UPI, so it never sits in your account and only your service fee goes on your invoice. Pay it for them instead, and keeping it out of your taxable value depends on Rule 33 of the CGST Rules: you pay on the client's authorisation, the payment is shown separately on your invoice, and it comes in addition to your own service. The rule's definition of a pure agent adds that you recover only the actual amount, nothing on top.

If you're GST-registered, 18% is the rate usually applied to an agent's facilitation fee; confirm the SAC and rate with your CA. Not registered because your aggregate turnover is under the ₹20 lakh GST threshold (₹10 lakh in a few special category States)? Then you can't charge GST on your fee at all.

Example: Adult, fresh, 36-page, normal passport, GST-registered counter. Government fee ₹2,500, paid by the client on the portal. Say your loaded staff cost works out to roughly ₹180 an hour (illustrative, not market data) and the real work takes 1.25 hours: ₹225 of cost, marked up about three times to a ₹700 service fee. Add 18% GST (₹126) and your invoice reads ₹826, against a client outlay of ₹3,326 across two lines.

Careful: Don't collect it all as one line reading "Passport charges ₹3,326 incl. GST." Without a separate line the pure-agent exclusion is lost, so tax is worked back out of the whole amount: ₹3,326 ÷ 1.18 is ₹2,818.64 of taxable value and ₹507.36 of GST. After paying the ₹2,500 government fee, you keep ₹318.64, not ₹700.

Client logins, OTPs and the papers in your file

Run every application on the client's own email and mobile. It isn't a written MEA rule, but it is where the system sends what matters: the appointment SMS counts as proof of booking, password-reset OTPs go to the registered mobile, and the account's user ID is emailed to the registered email ID when the account is created. Put your own number on the account, and you become the one fielding resets and appointment proof for a file that isn't yours.

Holding scanned passport and Aadhaar copies, on WhatsApp, email or a PC, makes your agency a Data Fiduciary under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. Its Rules were notified on 14 November 2025 with an eighteen-month period for phased compliance (PIB backgrounder), which on that timeline runs to around May 2027. Give the client a separate, plain consent notice for the copies, and delete them once the file closes; the passport scans and the DPDP Act post covers the rest.

Keep your board and WhatsApp ads on the right side of the law

MEA's fake-website alert on the Passport Seva portal warns that fraudulent websites and apps collect applicants' data and levy "additional hefty charges" for filling the form and scheduling appointments. Its examples include online-passportindia.com and passport-seva.in, and the list isn't exhaustive. Your signboard or WhatsApp broadcast shouldn't look like one of them.

Calling yourself an "authorised," "registered" or "government-approved" passport agent claims an approval you don't have. Under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, that fits the definition of an unfair trade practice (section 2(47)(i)(e)), and an ad carrying it is a misleading advertisement (section 2(28)). CCPA can order such an ad discontinued or modified under section 21(1), and under section 89 a service provider who causes a false or misleading ad prejudicial to consumers faces up to two years' imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹10 lakh for a first offence.

Sell what you do: "passport form filling and appointment assistance," not "passport agent." See the CCPA's advertising rules post for the wider picture.

Common questions

Passport agent kaise bane in India

You can't, not as a licensed or authorised status. Agent submission ended when the Passport Seva Project replaced the old system, and no registration exists for the role. What you can run is a disclosed desk charging for form help, document checks and appointment booking, never for the outcome.

Is it legal for a travel agent to help with passport applications

Yes. The Regional Passport Officer's January 2012 letter, recorded in the Gujarat High Court judgment, said applicants who struggle with the online form or a status enquiry "may seek assistance from travel agents." What crosses the line is claiming an authorisation you don't have, promising a faster appointment or police verification, or changing the facts in the application.

CSC se passport kaise apply kare

Under the scheme MEA announced in 2014, a CSC fills and uploads the form, pays the fee online and books the appointment for a nominal charge. The only verified figure is that 2014 cap of ₹100, so ask your local CSC its current rate rather than assume it's still that. The applicant still goes to the PSK in person for photos, biometrics and document checks.

What should a passport agent charge for a Tatkaal application

Charge for checking the extra Tatkaal documents, not for speed. The Tatkaal add-on is itself a government fee (₹2,500, paid online in full at booking), and no agent controls eligibility or how fast police verification runs.

The short version

• No licence or "authorised passport agent" status exists to get: agent submission ended with the Passport Seva Project, and the Gujarat High Court refused to restore it in 2012.
• Sell form filling, document checks, annexures, fee checks and appointment booking, all disclosed and separately priced.
• Never sell personal appearance (mandatory for every applicant), faster police verification, a guaranteed Tatkaal slot, or any change to the application's content.
• Price on two lines: government fee at actuals (₹2,500 / ₹3,500 / ₹1,750, plus a ₹2,500 Tatkaal add-on from 1 July 2026) and your service fee, plus 18% GST only if you're registered, confirmed with your CA.
• Keep the client's own email and mobile on the account, and delete their passport/Aadhaar copies once the file closes.
• Never call yourself "authorised" or "government-approved": that's a misleading ad, not loose marketing.