Renewing our passports

[al_yrpal]

Big surprise how quick and easy it was. Photo Me booth took great pics for 6 quid and you can enter the code printed on your prints during your online application process and the passport office finds your picture which was prechecked by the Photo Me booth. The applications went in on the 20th Feb and a text came today saying our new passports have been despatched - just a week to process it compared with the 6 weeks they quote. You can apply for a new passport some time before it expires and they maintain your old expiration date thus you get a little more than 10 years

Al

[Warin61]

How long before? It would be at least 6 months before expiry as some countries want that before they issue visas.

And for those that forget .. you can renew an expired passport up to 3 years after expiry. Hopefully you get a full 10 years from the date of renewal rather than 10 years from the date of expiry.

[Cyril Haearn]

How long before? It would be at least 6 months before expiry as some countries want that before they issue visas.

And for those that forget .. you can renew an expired passport up to 3 years after expiry. Hopefully you get a full 10 years from the date of renewal rather than 10 years from the date of expiry.

9 months before

[rjb]

When I renewed my passport I used my camera following the guidelines issued with the application pack and took a digital image. Cut and pasted 6 copies, 3each of me and Swmbo, copied to a memory stick then took to Morrison's and using there upload and print a photo on a 6x4 or maybe 5x3 photo I had 6 passport sized pics for 25p.
Hardest part was manipulating the image size to meet the passport requirement, and I have the template on my PC so I can repeat it whenever I require another photo.

[landsurfer]

When Julie renewed her passport and driving licence in January no pic was needed .... The pic on her driving licence was stored by Dvla and was available to both parties ....

[RickH]

And if your current passport is due to run out soon it may be worth renewing before the price goes up (by £12.50 unless you renew online where the increase is only £3) on 27th March.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42860723

[simonhill]

Time of year used to make a big difference in how long to renew or get new passport. From June onwards for a few months it used to be very busy. Presumably same now.

February is obviously a good time.

[100%JR]

What happens to a valid EU passport once we leave the EU?
The Govt.UK site states that holders “will have to do nothing”.That’s a bit vague.Does it mean they’ll replace it with a UK passport free of charge or do you just keep your current one until it runs out
I’ll still have 5 years to run in mine and my daughter(who’s replacing hers this Summer) will have 9 years.Are we technically still EU citizens

[landsurfer]

What happens to a valid EU passport once we leave the EU?
The Govt.UK site states that holders “will have to do nothing”.That’s a bit vague.Does it mean they’ll replace it with a UK passport free of charge or do you just keep your current one until it runs out
I’ll still have 5 years to run in mine and my daughter(who’s replacing hers this Summer) will have 9 years.Are we technically still EU citizens

Just because you have a book with "1984" on the cover does not make you Big Brother ........

[Mick F]

Driving License photo and passport are the same ones and same as our Two Together Railcard.
I did my/our own with a digital camera against the wall. Saved £6 each.
I did the same for friends of ours for their TG Railcard.

Bus Pass: the chap who did mine, took the photo as part of the free service.

[thirdcrank]

So, it's going to cost £85 quid + possible photo cost + postage for law-abiding people to prove who they are if they travel. Is there any evidence that this has any proportionate effect on the rest?

[irc]

What happens to a valid EU passport once we leave the EU?
The Govt.UK site states that holders “will have to do nothing”.That’s a bit vague.Does it mean they’ll replace it with a UK passport free of charge or do you just keep your current one until it runs out
I’ll still have 5 years to run in mine and my daughter(who’s replacing hers this Summer) will have 9 years.Are we technically still EU citizens

Not sure there is such a thing as an EU passport. Surely it is a British passport which due to EU membership had to conform to a common EU style. So post Brexit we will still have UK passports.

[Mick F]

............ and they're going to be blue again.

[softlips]

Just had to renew mine by going into the passport office as I couldn’t be without it for over a week. Luckily I persuaded my employer to pay the £50 extra for two hour turn around.

[mjr]

Not sure there is such a thing as an EU passport. Surely it is a British passport which due to EU membership had to conform to a common EU style. So post Brexit we will still have UK passports.

The UK voluntarily changed its passports to look more like other EU ones under the Thatcher government in 1988 and it is indeed an EU passport, in that it says "European Union" on the cover (since 1997 - "European Community" before then):


Passports did not have to conform to any common style as far as the EU were concerned - Croatia's new EU-member passport is closer to the old UK colour than the current proposal for navy blue, for example:


The driving force for the current size and shape of the passport is to fit in biometric readers (both self-service gates and those used at border/immigration control desks), so the proposed navy blue passport looks basically the same except for the background colour and loss of "European Union" words:


So, as far as anyone can tell yet, we will not be going back to hard covers, covers with cutouts or even the old near-black shade. The phrase "British Passport" will still not appear on it.


Anyone who let the passport design influence their referendum vote in any way has fallen for a Euromyth. (all images from Wikipedia articles on or linked from "British passport" - please see there for full credits and copyright info)