Passport Appointment Booking: How PSK Slots Are Released and How to Get One

Passport appointments are booked only on the Passport Seva portal, and Tatkaal slots open at a fixed time every day that differs by Passport Office, ranging from 11:00 to 17:00 across the 37 offices. For Normal service the system allots the appointment automatically once your fee payment succeeds, except at the busiest Passport Seva Kendras, where Normal slots are opened at the same fixed daily time as Tatkaal (Appointment Opening Time, Passport Seva, accessed 2026-08-27).

This guide is maintained by Zurich Kotak General Insurance, an IRDAI-registered general insurer in India and part of the Zurich Insurance Group.

How Zurich Kotak fits in: Appointment slots are released by Passport Seva alone and nobody can move one forward, but Zurich Kotak covers the trip that slot is the first step towards. Zurich Kotak’s Smart Travel policy covers emergency medical treatment abroad, medical evacuation and baggage loss or delay, up to the limits of the plan you buy. It needs no appointment and no visit: the plan is bought per trip and issued online once departure dates are fixed.

Last verified: 2026-08-27.

The only place to book, and the domain to check you are on

Appointments are booked on the Passport Seva portal at passportindia.gov.in , after you have filled the application form and paid online.

Type the domain rather than following a search advert. Two older addresses, portal1.passportindia.gov.in and portal2.passportindia.gov.in , are still quoted by pages ranking for this query. Neither resolves any more. The live portal is passportindia.gov.in/psp .

Online payment is mandatory for booking at any Passport Seva Kendra or Post Office Passport Seva Kendra, by card, SBI internet banking or UPI. There is no book-now-pay-later route, which is the main reason people find slots gone by the time they are ready.

The Ministry states plainly that it “has not authorised any intermediary/representative” to arrange urgent appointments or faster delivery. Anyone selling a guaranteed slot does not have one.

When slots open, Passport Office by Passport Office

Each Regional Passport Office releases appointments at its own fixed daily time. This is the table people search for and rarely find, because the government publishes it as a PDF, not a page.

Source: Appointment Opening Time, Passport Seva, accessed 2026-08-27. These times change without notice, so check the PDF on the day you book.

Why slots disappear, and the one route most people miss

Slots do not trickle out through the day. They are released in one batch at the opening time, and at a busy Passport Office that batch is gone in minutes.

Three mechanics explain almost every frustrating booking session.

1.      Tatkaal slots are released once a day, at the time in the table above for your chosen Passport Office.

2.      Normal slots are ordinarily allotted by the system straight after a successful payment, so there is nothing to queue for. The exception matters: at Passport Seva Kendras “where the demand is exceedingly high”, Normal appointments open at the same fixed time, which turns them into a race.

3.      Freed slots, which are the ones nobody talks about. Appointments given up through cancellation or rescheduling are put back into the pool and released “everyday based on their availability and at a fixed time i.e. at the time of opening of Tatkaal appointments” (Check Appointment Availability, Passport Seva, accessed 2026-08-27).

The third mechanic is the practical answer to a distant appointment. If you hold a booking six weeks out, you are allowed to prepone it into a freed slot: log in at your Passport Office’s Tatkaal opening time and look again. Slots are allotted according to each centre’s capacity, on a first-in-first-out electronic queue.

PSK, POPSK and the collection centres

A Passport Seva Kendra handles every passport service. A Post Office Passport Seva Kendra handles front-end work but will not accept you if you live outside its Passport Office’s jurisdiction.

You may apply from anywhere in India and pick any Passport Office, whether or not your address falls under it. Police verification still happens at the address on your form. Those two rules sit awkwardly together on the portal itself, so the safe reading is this: if your address is outside the Passport Office you have selected, book a PSK, not a POPSK.

The portal’s centre directory also lists a third facility type, the Passport Seva Laghu Kendra (PSLK), at locations such as Itanagar and Dimapur. No current government page defines what a PSLK is or how it differs from a PSK, so we will not tell you. If your nearest centre is a PSLK, ring the National Call Centre on 1800-258-1800 and ask what it accepts before booking.

Rescheduling, and the limits nobody reads until it is too late

You get two reschedules on a Normal application and exactly one on a Tatkaal application, counted within a year of your first appointment date.

Source: Passport Seva appointment and fee FAQs, accessed 2026-08-27.

How to book, step by step

Have the form filled and the fee ready before the opening time, because the booking screen is not the place to start typing.

Before the opening time, register on the portal, complete the application form, decide which Passport Office and centre you want, and have a card, SBI net banking or UPI ready. Then:

1.      Log in at passportindia.gov.in/psp a few minutes early.

2.      Open “Pay and Schedule Appointment” against your saved application.

3.      Choose the centre, pay online, and confirm the slot the system offers.

4.      Print or save the Application Receipt with the appointment date, time and reference.

The fee is not refundable, so book a centre you can actually reach on the day.

What to carry, and what to leave at home

Originals plus one self-attested photocopy of each document, and your old passport if this is a re-issue. No photograph is needed at a PSK or POPSK.

Carry the appointment receipt, the originals of every document listed for your case, a self-attested photocopy of each, and the old passport for a re-issue. An applicant who arrives without the full set can be “refused token”, and may then revisit the same centre rather than start again.

Leave the laptop, tablet and camera behind. Electronic devices of that kind are prohibited inside a PSK or POPSK, along with sharp objects and anything corrosive or explosive.

If you miss your appointment

If you still have a reschedule left, use it. If you do not, the portal publishes no procedure, and the fee is not refundable.

This is an honest gap rather than a hidden rule. The Ministry documents the reschedule limits and states that the fee is non-refundable, but no current government page says what becomes of an application after an appointment is missed outright. Ring 1800-258-1800, or ask at a Passport Office enquiry counter, rather than trusting a figure from a forum.

Note also that the walk-in facility senior citizens, differently-abled applicants and minors under five once had has been withdrawn. An online appointment is now the only route for them too.

Common mistakes

Booking is where most applications lose a week, almost always for one of these reasons.

Where this sits in your application

The appointment is the third step, not the first. Documents and fee come before it, and the file number comes after it.

·       Before you book: documents required for an Indian passport .

·       Before the payment screen: passport fees in India .

·       After the appointment, the reference every status check needs: passport file number .

Frequently asked questions

What time do passport appointment slots open? It depends on your Passport Office. Tatkaal slots open at a fixed time each day, ranging from 11:00 to 17:00 across the 37 Passport Offices, and the official table is published as a PDF on the Passport Seva site. Normal slots are usually allotted by the system after successful payment, except at very busy Passport Seva Kendras, where they open at the same fixed time.

Why are there no appointments available at my PSK? Slots are released in one batch at the opening time rather than continuously, so at a busy centre the day’s release can go within minutes. Appointments freed by other applicants cancelling or rescheduling return to the pool every day at the Tatkaal opening time, which is the best moment to look again.

Can I move an existing appointment to an earlier date? Yes. Passport Seva allows applicants to prepone a booked appointment into a slot freed by someone else, and those slots are released daily at the Tatkaal opening time for your Passport Office.

How many times can I reschedule a passport appointment? Twice for a Normal application, within a year of the first appointment date. Tatkaal appointments allow one reschedule only, with effect from 1 April 2023. A Police Clearance Certificate application allows a single appointment within a year of the first appointment date.

Can I book an appointment at any city in India? You may apply from anywhere in India and choose any Passport Office, and police verification is still carried out at the address on your form. If your address falls outside the selected office’s jurisdiction, book a Passport Seva Kendra: Post Office Passport Seva Kendras do not accept out-of-jurisdiction applicants.