The Department of Passports (DoP), a Department under Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Nepal, issues passports to Nepalese citizens and Travel Documents to legally eligible persons in accordance with the Passport Act 2076, Passport Regulations 2077, Passport Directives 2071 (First Amendment), Passport Procedures 2078, ICAO standard and other related government rules and regulations. The Department was established on 26 January 2012 (2068/10/12 B.S.). Prior to that, Passport Section under the Protocol Division of the Ministry was assigned with the passport and travel document related functions until the establishment of Central Passport Office (CPO) on 25 May 2010 (2067/02/11 B.S). As per the Rules of Business Allocation of the Government of Nepal, MoFA has been assigned with the responsibilities of issuing Passports to Nepalese citizens and Travel Documents to legally eligible persons. As the demand for passports began to soar rapidly along with the requirement to migrate to machine readable passports, a separate Department was deemed necessary to effectively deliver passport services to the public. This led to the establishment of Department of Passports as a separate organization under MOFA. Department of Passports is committed to providing transparent, efficient, responsive, prompt, predictable and secure service to its service-seekers.