The title of this page promises the steps and the waiting time, and on the waiting time there is good news: the Directorate of Civil Affairs publishes one. It is 30 days on average. The fee is published too, to the last Surinamese dollar. What is not published is an early-renewal window, so if you have read that you may apply a fixed number of months before expiry, that came from somewhere other than the directorate.
Who issues it, and under which law
Travel documents for Surinamese citizens are handled by the afdeling Paspoorten of the Directoraat Burgerzaken (DBZ), under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The application itself is lodged at a Bureau voor Burgerzaken — the district or neighborhood office — and the DBZ is at Mr. Jagernath Lachmonstraat 170 in Paramaribo. Its published numbers are +597 499239 for the central desk, +597 494411 for information and +597 490340 for the secretariat. This matters because guides routinely name the civil registry instead, which is a different office doing different work.
The legal basis changed recently and the date is worth holding on to. The directorate states that the Wet Reisdocumenten was approved on 17 May 2022 and entered into force on 2 May 2025, replacing the earlier paspoorteninstructie, an annex to a resolution. Its stated purpose is to allow more fraud-resistant documents by including biometric data and electronic features. So anything written about Surinamese passports before May 2025 describes a regime that no longer applies.
The published document types are a National Passport, valid 10 years for citizens of 18 and over; a Second National Passport in special cases; an emergency passport, machine-readable but without a chip, valid one year and running to eight pages; diplomatic and service passports; and a laissez-passer for a single journey in emergencies.
What it costs: the published leges
The directorate publishes a fee table. Read on 25 October 2026, the travel-document lines are:
- New or follow-on National e-Passport, 18 and over: SRD 2,100
- New or follow-on National e-Passport, 0 to 17: SRD 1,365
- Second National Passport: SRD 3,150
- Emergency passport: SRD 1,050
- Laissez-passer: SRD 500
- Penalty on a lost or stolen e-passport: SRD 900; on a damaged one: SRD 650 — and both accumulate with the number of times it has happened
Two honest notes on that source. First, the travel-document table carries no date and no statutory reference of its own; a second table lower on the same page is headed Aangepaste leges DBZ conform Staatsbesluit van 09 september 2026 (SB 2026 no. 93) and covers certificates, declarations, legalization and register extracts — a marriage certificate at SRD 50, a civil-status certificate at SRD 25, legalization of other documents including passports and ID at SRD 200. We cite that decree only for what it actually sits above. Second, the fees are in Surinamese dollars and the page does not convert them. At our canonical reference rate for 24 October 2026 — 37.6789 SRD to the dollar and 42.3731 SRD to the euro — SRD 2,100 works out at roughly USD 56 or EUR 50. That is our arithmetic with that reference date on it, not a published price. For scale: a Dutch passport applied for at the embassy in Paramaribo is EUR 169.00 on the 2026 consular fee list, several times the Surinamese document.
The waiting time the directorate does publish
Here is the sentence the title of this page rests on, from the directorate's own passport page: De gemiddelde wachttijd bedraagt 30 dagen vanaf de datum van indiening van de aanvraag bij het Bureau voor Burgerzaken waar de aanvraag is gedaan. In other words, the average waiting time is 30 days, counted from the date you submitted at the office where you applied.
Read that for exactly what it says. It is an average, not a maximum and not a service guarantee. The directorate publishes no sample size behind it, no spread, no breakdown by office or by month, and no separate figure for a renewal as against a first application. So use 30 days to plan, keep your own submission receipt with its date, and ask at your office rather than assuming your file is average.
When you can go faster, and what that costs
There is a published expedited route, and it is not open to everyone. A spoedafhandeling can be requested in these situations, each against the stated proof: a death, with a death certificate; illness, with a medical certificate from a specialist; a sporting or study obligation, with a declaration from the club or the institution; and a duty of service, with a declaration from the employer.
The price of speed is simple arithmetic: an extra 100 per cent of the passport fee. For an adult that turns SRD 2,100 into SRD 4,200 in total. Three categories can ask to be released from the expedited fee: applicants who must travel abroad for medical reasons, on a specialist's declaration; one companion travelling with such a person, where the specialist's declaration shows the companion travels too; and blood or marriage relatives of a deceased person up to and including the third degree. The expedited fee becomes payable once your documents have been approved, not before.
The expedited desk sits on the ground floor of the directorate and is open Monday to Friday from 07:30 to 13:30. It takes in expedited applications and their supporting papers, hands out expedited passports, and answers status questions after your neighborhood office has referred you — bring the referral note. One published figure sharpens the picture considerably: expedited applications for a death or an illness submitted before 10:00 can still be dealt with the same day. For that visit you need your receipt, an ID card or other valid identification, the family booklet, the supporting documents and the referral note.
What you bring, and what you do not need
For a renewal the published list is short: your old passport, your ID card, and photographs that the page marks as not mandatory. That last point deserves saying out loud, because the usual advice about passport-photograph specifications being a rejection risk does not match what this directorate publishes. For a first application you bring an ID card, one photograph (again not mandatory) and a birth certificate — and if you were born abroad, that certificate needs an apostille stamp and, if it is in a language other than Dutch, a translation. A lost passport needs a police declaration and your ID card; a damaged one needs the damaged document and your ID card.
For applicants of 17 and under: the family booklet or a birth certificate; a photograph, not mandatory but advisable for a baby; both parents for children born within a marriage, otherwise only the mother or the legal representative; adoptive parents in the case of adoption; and only the guardian, with the guardianship documents, where a guardian has been appointed. Children from 16 must also produce a valid ID card. Children under 12 are not required to give fingerprints but must be present in person at the application. Where a parent or guardian cannot attend, there is a consent-and-authorization form, which must first be legalized by a notary.
Paying, and collecting it
Three payment methods are published: a card at a POS terminal, a bank transfer, or a bank deposit. If you choose the bank route, there is a sequencing rule that will otherwise cost you a wasted trip. You must first report to your neighborhood office, or the office you were referred to, to be given an ARN number; without it the bank cannot process your payment.
Two more practical instructions from the same page. Always ask for your receipt and keep it carefully, because it also serves as your collection slip. And before you sign the application, read it and make sure your correct telephone or contact number is on it — you are notified by text message when the passport is finished, and also when something is wrong with the application.
A text message tells you the document is ready. Collection is in person, and you present three things: the collection slip, the old passport, and valid identification. Then there is a check that has no workaround: the passport is not handed over if the fingerprints taken at verification do not match the registered data. If that happens, it is a matter for the directorate, not for the counter staff, and it is a reason to keep your own documentation of the application.
What is not published, and what expats should know
- No early-renewal window is published. There is no stated number of months before expiry at which you may apply, so plan around the 30-day average instead.
- SRD 2,100 for an adult, SRD 1,365 for a child. The fee is on the published leges table.
- The average waiting time is 30 days from submission at the office where you applied — an average, with no sample size published.
- Speed costs exactly double and requires documented grounds.
- A death or illness case lodged before 10:00 can be handled the same day.
- Photographs are not mandatory. Your old passport and ID card are.
- Get the ARN number before you go to the bank.
- Keep the receipt — it is your collection slip, and collection is in person with fingerprint verification.
- The application locations and their fees are in an attached schedule that is not on the page we read, so ask your neighborhood office which office handles your case.
Where to check
The document types, required papers, waiting time, payment methods and collection rules are from the directorate's e-passport pages. The expedited desk, its hours and the same-day rule are from the passport department page. The amounts are from the published leges table, where the second table carries the Staatsbesluit of 9 September 2026 (SB 2026 no. 93). All read on 25 October 2026. The dollar and euro equivalents are our own conversion at 37.6789 SRD per dollar and 42.3731 SRD per euro, the canonical reference rates for 24 October 2026.
Primary Sources
Last updated: October 2026
