By KT Reporter
The National Identification and Registration Authority -NIRA has registered 6,152,753 first time applicants for National Identity Card in under 9 months. According to Clara Ollama, the NIRA Spokesperson, the new applicants were registered between April 01, 2025 and December 23, 2025.
Ollama said the first-time applicants include majorly young people who turned 18 in the last 10 years when NIRA first issued the National IDs and those who were adults at the time of first issuance but probably never took the exercise serious. NIRA first issued National IDs in 2014 and they have since expired.
According to Ollama, more than 600,000 first time National ID applicants have already received theirs and she has urged others who haven’t received to be patient because they will soon be invited to pick them.
At least particulars of 32,351 Ugandans have been changed at a cost of 200,000. These costs are incurred when someone changes his or her name, or date of birth which wasn’t initially a mistake by NIRA. The 200,000 shillings payable for this means NIRA has so far collected 6.47billion shillings from changed National ID particulars.
Ollama has urged Ugandans changing particulars of children not to pay any fee because they are minors who cannot take an oath. She says that changing details of a minor only requires filling a form 7 which can be accessed online.
NIRA has also urged Ugandans living with children who are not biologically theirs but they are their blood relatives to register them because the process doesn’t necessarily require the presence of the parent.
Ollama’s declaration on free registration and change of particulars of children comes at the time when many students were left out in school registrations because they had particulars not matching details they provided when they were in lower primary.
Peter Ntale said his daughter Susan Nantale was left out by NIRA team because she was first registered by her mother when she was in primary two with a different name. “When my daughter was brought to me, I gave her the clan’s name Nantale but she was rejected by NIRA team who went to her school. I was told that I need to pay 200,000 in order to correct the errors yet she is just 15 years old,” Ntale said.
NIRA has also revealed that 13,365,388 Ugandans have already been registered to renew their National IDs. Ollama said the exercise for renewing National IDs and registering first time applicants will end on February 08, 2026.
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