Indian nationals—who make up more than 3.6 million of the UAE’s residents—face higher consular costs from July 1 after New Delhi gazetted the first major fee overhaul in a decade. As reported on June 27 by Gulf News, the Passports (Amendment) Rules 2026 will lift the price of most Indian passport services worldwide by up to three-quarters. In the UAE the change coincides with the launch of the Indian Consular Application Centres (ICAC), a new franchise awarded to Alhind Tours & Travels that replaces all previous outsourced service providers. Under the ICAC model, expatriates will lodge passport renewals, Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards, visas, police-clearance certificates and document-attestation requests through a single portal and 11 walk-in centres across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and the northern emirates. A flat service fee of AED 19 and a target processing window of 30 minutes per application have been promised.
![Indian passport fees set to jump 75 % in UAE as new ‘ICAC’ one-stop centres go live]()
Organizations looking for additional guidance on UAE entry requirements during this transition can tap VisaHQ’s online tools and in-country expertise. The platform (https://www.visahq.com/united-arab-emirates/) lets HR teams and individual travelers check the latest visa matrices, start digital applications and arrange courier pick-ups, streamlining a process that can otherwise involve multiple government portals. Whether it is coordinating a new employment entry permit or updating dependent visas, VisaHQ’s dashboard centralizes documentation and status tracking, complementing the ICAC roll-out.
For global-mobility managers the headline is cost: a standard 36-page, 10-year passport will rise from AED 285 to roughly AED 500 once the new tariff is converted and local VAT added. Employers who pay for dependent documentation will need to update assignment budgets immediately. At the same time, the consolidation of services should reduce duplication and lost appointments— perennial pain points that have delayed project start-ups when staff passports were held up in the system. Indian missions have stressed that timing is tight. From July 1, VFS Global and BLS International will cease accepting new files; any incomplete applications will be transferred to ICAC, potentially adding a one-week backlog. Companies are advised to triage urgent renewals before Friday and to brief travelling employees on the interim hand-over period when appointment slots may be scarce. The overhaul also signals India’s broader push to monetise citizen services abroad while improving user experience—an approach watched closely by other large diaspora states such as Pakistan and the Philippines.
Organizations looking for additional guidance on UAE entry requirements during this transition can tap VisaHQ’s online tools and in-country expertise. The platform (https://www.visahq.com/united-arab-emirates/) lets HR teams and individual travelers check the latest visa matrices, start digital applications and arrange courier pick-ups, streamlining a process that can otherwise involve multiple government portals. Whether it is coordinating a new employment entry permit or updating dependent visas, VisaHQ’s dashboard centralizes documentation and status tracking, complementing the ICAC roll-out.
For global-mobility managers the headline is cost: a standard 36-page, 10-year passport will rise from AED 285 to roughly AED 500 once the new tariff is converted and local VAT added. Employers who pay for dependent documentation will need to update assignment budgets immediately. At the same time, the consolidation of services should reduce duplication and lost appointments— perennial pain points that have delayed project start-ups when staff passports were held up in the system. Indian missions have stressed that timing is tight. From July 1, VFS Global and BLS International will cease accepting new files; any incomplete applications will be transferred to ICAC, potentially adding a one-week backlog. Companies are advised to triage urgent renewals before Friday and to brief travelling employees on the interim hand-over period when appointment slots may be scarce. The overhaul also signals India’s broader push to monetise citizen services abroad while improving user experience—an approach watched closely by other large diaspora states such as Pakistan and the Philippines.
