The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has officially launched the “MOFA SY” mobile application, making it available to users worldwide after a pilot phase that began at the Syrian embassy in Beirut.

According to the ministry’s announcement on Thursday, 13 November, the app allows Syrian citizens and expatriates to access a wide range of Foreign Ministry services easily and quickly through their smartphones.

The ministry confirmed that the application is now active in all diplomatic missions of the Syrian Arab Republic around the world.

It also attached download links for the app for both iPhone and Android devices.

Pilot version

In September, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates launched an electronic application for booking consular appointments, in a bid to improve services provided to Syrians abroad.

At the time, the Director of Information Systems and Digital Transformation at the Foreign Ministry, Azou al-Muhammad, told the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) that the app replaces the previous platform, developed under the former regime, which suffered from security and organizational gaps. Those flaws allowed appointments to be exploited, resold, and managed through “bots”, depriving citizens of their rights.

He added that the ministry’s team developed a secure and fair system that ensures transparent distribution of appointments and prevents any manipulation.

The first pilot version of the application was launched at the Syrian embassy in Beirut as a precursor to rolling it out to all Syrian embassies and missions around the world.

Al-Muhammad explained that the app will later serve as a platform for additional electronic consular services, with the aim of reducing the need to visit embassies in person and speeding up paperwork by automating procedures.

He stressed that the ministry will continue to develop its digital services in order to provide fair, transparent, and fast solutions to Syrians abroad.

Syrians living outside the country had long suffered while trying to book appointments to renew passports through the previous online platform, due to slow performance, frequent breakdowns, and the lack of clear schedules for releasing new passport appointment slots.

New booking slots in Berlin

At the beginning of November, the Syrian embassy in Berlin began gradually releasing new appointment slots through its electronic booking platform, after expanding the passports department and staffing it with new administrative and technical personnel to keep pace with rising demand for consular services.

In a post, the embassy said the number of appointments would be increased gradually and in an organized manner over the coming weeks, with the goal of moving to a system of continuous availability throughout the week within no more than one month, similar to the model successfully implemented at the consulate in Istanbul.

This step comes as part of the ministry’s digital transformation and administrative development plan, which aims to:

• Enable citizens to obtain their consular services easily and conveniently.
• Provide a level of service that befits Syrian citizens and preserves their dignity wherever they are.
• Put an end once and for all to brokerage and middlemen by adopting modern, secure, and transparent electronic systems.
• Ensure fairness and equality in the distribution of appointments through the official platform, without any intermediaries.

The embassy urged citizens to follow the release of new appointment slots through the official “MOFA SY” app, stressing that booking is completely free of charge and is not carried out through any other party.