The passports in question lack a place for the signature of the holder, an omission to which German immigration officials had objected.

“Passports with add-on signatures [of holders] which have been validated by Indonesian immigration authorities can be used to apply for a visa, effective immediately,” the German Embassy said on Instagram on Wednesday.

Achmad Nur Saleh, spokesperson for the Immigration Directorate General at the Law and Human Rights Ministry, urged holders of this type of passport wanting to apply for a German visa to immediately file a request for the signature section addition on the endorsement pages of their passports.

Endorsement pages are on the fourth and fifth pages of Indonesian passports and typically are used to display a name change through marriage or divorce.

“The process to add a signature section can be done either in immigration offices in Indonesia or Indonesian diplomatic missions abroad,” Achmad said on Thursday.

Passport holders must provide ID cards for verification, according to director for immigration traffic Amran Aris.

Indonesian passports, except certain batches produced from 2019 to 2020, have a signature section on the last page, as part of supplementary information on identity of the holders.

The immigration cited "efficiency” as the reason for the 2019 launch of a passport without a section for the holder’s signature. It will continue issuing passports without a space for the signature and applicants cannot choose between this type of passport and those with such spaces.

Read also: Govt promises to fix Indonesian passport trouble

The German Embassy said on its website last week that Indonesian “passports without a signature section” could not be used to apply for a visa until further notice and that the two governments were still seeking a solution to the matter. The website at the time also noted that add-on signatures on the endorsement pages of the passports were “not recognized as a substitute for the required signature section”.

The issue gained public attention after an Indonesian citizen posted on social media that the German Embassy in Jakarta had denied their visa application because they were holding a passport without a signature section.

Indonesian authorities had then scrambled to fix the problem. On Aug. 13, the Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the German Embassy requesting that it accept the visa applications for Indonesians holding passports without signatures, saying that it “respectfully confirms that these travel documents are valid as authentic Indonesian travel documents.” The ministry explained in the letter that the government had produced this type of passport from 2019 to 2020 before returning to use a design that featured holders' signatures in 2021.

It remains unclear whether other countries will refuse to recognize the unsigned passports.

An Immigration spokesperson declined to comment on ways to anticipate this.

Taufik Basari, who sits on House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs and is a member of the NasDem Party, previously said the government should ensure that no other countries refuse to recognize such Indonesian passports.

Indonesia ranks 76th on the 2022 Henley Passport Index, a list of the world's most powerful passports by immigration consulting firm Henley & Partners. Indonesians can visit 72 countries without the hassle of applying for a visa, far fewer than passport holders of neighboring Singapore who can visit 192 countries under the same conditions.