thedtb

I figured this could be useful information for others so deserved a post in its own right.

Our new baby boy is now approaching 4 weeks old. As detailed in my other post, him being born slightly earlier than planned caused some issues with our PR application.

We needed to get him a British Passport and was initially told by the Passport helpline in New Zealand that it'd take 4-6 weeks.

The timeline of what actually happened was as follows;

• Saturday 18th June - Posted his passport application along with his Birth Certificate, our Marriage Certificate, both my wife's and my own passport too. Paid for a next-day service, but was advised by the lady in the post shop that it wouldn't leave them until the Monday.
• Monday 20th June - {assumed} - Package leaves local post shop
• Tuesday 21st June - {assumed} - Package arrives with The High Commission in Wellington
• Thursday 23rd June - Shiny new passport (along with all of the ID we sent to them) arrives back with us. Passport shows an issue date of June 21st.

I don't imagine it's always this quick, but assuming your application form and ID etc checks out, it just proves that "4-6 weeks" can easily be a considerable over-statement too!!

simonsi

We renewed our youngests passport earlier in the year and that was 5 days start to finish so its not unusual for their service to be that quick.

thedtb

We were told that renewing a passport could be quite quick but that an application for a 1st passport would take considerably longer.

Nevertheless their service has been excellent... short of the 10min phone call I had with them to discuss the fact that nobody in NZ has known us for more than 2 years therefore I wasn't sure what to do about the counter-signatory.... $45??? but... the passport got here so it's worth it... kinda.