After months of delays, the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA) has officially launched Uganda’s long-awaited mass enrollment and national ID renewal exercise.
The initial phase, which began on May 2, targets senior officials from NIRA and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The general public will be enrolled starting May 27, with registration taking place at the parish level across all 146 administrative districts.
Uganda’s first national ID cards were issued between 2014 and 2015, with some expiring as early as August 2024. NIRA now plans to renew 15.8 million cards due to expire by August 2025 and register an additional 17.2 million new applicants. This will bring the total number of active national IDs to approximately 33 million.
Presiding over the launch, State Minister for Internal Affairs, Gen. David Muhoozi, revealed that the National Identification Register currently holds data for 27.7 million Ugandans. He noted that Cabinet approved the renewal initiative in August 2022 after recognizing that several IDs had already expired. To prevent disruption of services dependent on the ID system, the government had previously extended the validity of expired cards through a statutory instrument.
To support the renewed effort, the government procured 5,665 biometric registration kits from Tahaluf Al Emarat Technical Solutions. These were delivered in January and distributed across the country by February 25. Additionally, two high-capacity card production machines—capable of printing up to 100,000 laser-engraved cards per day—were received in March.
The upgraded ID system is now built on the Modular Open Source Identification Platform (MOSIP), which supports online registration and enhanced biometric data capture, including iris scans. A new data center infrastructure has also been established, featuring five racks, eight servers, firewalls, and other vital communication tools.
Biometric enrollment will only be carried out at designated sites by trained NIRA officers. The full-scale rollout will focus on Ugandans aged 16 and above. First-time applicants will be issued a National Identification Number (NIN), and those who complete the process successfully will receive their cards within four weeks—a timeline expected to reduce to two weeks as operations normalize.
Registration and ID renewal services will be offered free of charge to first-time applicants and individuals with expired cards. However, those requesting updates to personal information or replacements for lost cards will be required to pay a fee.
