the troubadour

Providing you have enclosed old passport together with approved passport photo, you should get notification very soon.(the photo must be approved though you can find out on line if meeting standards) They will inform you it is on the way and that EDF will be in contact when it gets to this side. I'd say perhaps seven weeks in total, max.

astera

Yeah, it used to work well and the turnaround was fast. Seems like it's a lottery nowadays, either you get a competent person dealing with the case or a clueless idiot. It seems like the latter happened so over one month down the road there is still no passport, no info, no nothing. England 2021 and Australia 2021 are in completely different stages of civilisation...

scrubbedexpat100

I just paid for the regular service because I wasn't in a desperate hurry for it to arrive tbh. My supporting documents arrived back the day after the new passport also.

the troubadour

I've no idea if it was partly virus influenced hold up or what you suggest. Most likely a lottery as well. Forgot to mention HM Passport office requires all passport pages if in possession of another passport as well. I understand your frustration. Then again Australia has some serious issues as well. Renewing my Australian passport on shore was not one of them. No idea what time duration would be if doing it offshore. I think you'll find seven weeks will cover total time. Here's hoping.

astera

No idea to be honest - I have included copies of all pages of my daughter's Australian passport. TBH I'm not even sure why I'm renewing this one since it's completely useless in our case. Since it's a non-EU passport we could just as well show our Australian passports everywhere in Europe.

BritInParis

If you’re an Australian living in the UK then you haven’t even been able to apply for a new passport since Christmas and as and when you can again it’ll cost you $440 aka the world’s most expensive passport.

moneypenny20

Ouch!

astera

The UK passport has finally arrived! After being approved (not sure what the hold up was as nobody ever contacted me...) it was delivered within 2 days.

The blue colour looks ugly, the font with all the personal details seems like half the size of previous documents so it's a bit hard to read (even though I have good eyesight), but on the upside it does seem a lot more secure. Overall there are like 4 photos in various places with a 5th mini-photo with the birthdate on it as well. So technology/security-wise it does seem like a leap forward.

The last time I renewed my Australian passport it was at an overseas embassy and it went smooth as silk. They even checked the physical photo to make sure it wouldn't cause any issues later. Seems like they take the application... and basically file everything electronically for you. Seemed like a breeze...

the troubadour

Congratulations. It was within the time frame I expected. I wasn't referring to passports in 'my issues' about Australia. Just the fact that it is the most (alleged) expensive passport in the world is indicative of the way things have gone . I had an Australian passport issued in The Netherlands decades ago. It took three days. I collected it at the embassy. Doubt if so easy these days.

astera

Thanks, just relieved to have received my child's UK passport (renewal) after over a month in limbo.

I do recall the Australian passport being expensive but I got mine renewed in 2019 and it was very simple. Paper form, physical photo, as mentioned before the photo was confirmed on the spot and the lady mentioned something about "entering" everything into the system, so I came to the conclusion that the embassy takes the physical docs and then uploads & sends everything back to Canberra/Australia for the passports to be produced. Quite effective and convenient for many, especially those who would rather file documents at the embassy rather than doing everything online (from an overseas perspective).

Personally, I just can't wait until my kids' passport renewals are done with these 5-year expiry dates and no longer require these third-person ID checks.