National Registration Bureau (NRB) has announced plans to roll out a supplementary national identification (ID) registration exercise across several districts in Malawi from this month.
The bureau said the move aims to provide an opportunity for eligible citizens who have not yet registered for a national ID, particularly in areas that were part of Phase One of the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) voter registration process for the September 16 2025 General Election.
In a statement released on Sunday evening, NRB Principal Secretary Mphatso Sambo said the supplementary registration will take place in 14 districts, including Chitipa, Karonga, Mzuzu City, Nkhotakota and Mulanje.
“NRB would like to give an opportunity to all eligible citizens who never registered for the national ID in these districts to register, considering that in Phase One, NRB was only providing digital identity verification,” he said.
NRB has not yet disclosed the specific locations or the duration of the registration, but it has reassured citizens that the process will be completed before the supplementary voter registration phase begins.
The bureau says this timing will allow sufficient time for adjudication, deduplication of records and the issuance of Unique Identification Numbers.
During the supplementary voter registration for Phase Two and Phase Three, NRB will continue providing digital identity verification services to citizens who previously registered with NRB during the last voter registration exercises.
This development comes amid growing concerns about the rising costs of the 2025 General Election, with MEC revealing that the re-opening of voter registration centres in districts covered in Phase One will push the total cost beyond the initial $187 million (about K324 billion) budget.
Earlier this month , MEC chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja, a judge of the High Court of Malawi , confirmed to The Nation that this extension, ordered by a High Court ruling, would incur additional costs as voter registration is now set to be repeated in these areas.
