BritInParis

The Passport Section in Düsseldorf will be closing permanently at the end of March and therefore British citizens who currently reside in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE will no longer be able to apply for their passports in Düsseldorf from 18th February. Any applications received in Düsseldorf from this date will be returned to the applicant at their expense.

You will need to apply to the IPS office in Liverpool from this date onwards. As Düsseldorf is the first Regional Passport Processing Office to close, its countries will serve as the guinea pigs for the new UK based service. As such you may wish to apply for your passport renewals in Düsseldorf in the next few weeks whilst the service is still available.

Patsy Stoned

and as such will still have to pay for their cock ups!!

westpat

May I ask your source for this news, as I found nothing online?

mikewot

Dunno about online but it's been mentioned in previous threads: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...e#post10457263

Millhouse

It's true. I renewed about two weeks ago. When they sent everything back they provided a slip confirming that the Dusseldorf place was shutting.

I dread to think what the quality of service will be like when Hubcap and Stereo start processing the passports.

scot47

I live near Glasgow. Belfast processes our passport applications by post. Dreadful service. Shocking prices. Welcome to post-imperial, post-indistrial Britain.

busybee2

yeh i knew that the germany office would be closing and from april you would need to apply to uk.

Beakersful

How long did we have to be vigilant against PIRA and then their homebase of operations is now issuing your passports? Irony much?

Miss Anne Thrope

"Northern Ireland is as British as Finchleah"
M. Thatcher (no not yet, I just checked again...)

Beakersful

Well, admittedly an incident on Scottish soil would have had half the west coast back on the ferries to NI. They really don't want to upset the kilt wearing locals. Some of them got rightly upset over the removal of the fiercest regiment we ever had.

Bob

Thought all the actual processing was done in the UK anyway, so this is just eliminating one postal step, where you just send it in directly.

So won't make much difference.

busybee2

yes the printing of the passport is done in uk, its the actual administrative process was done in germany

carbootsale

All,

It seems that Dusseldorf shows signs of life: IPS Liverpool told me (yesterday, 2013-04-19) that I would need to be interviewed by the Dusseldorf office before my (British Citizen By Descent) daughter's first passport would be issued. Can anyone shed some light on this?

BritInParis

The Passport Section in Düsseldorf is definitely closed and has been since the end of March. The only staff left that would be able to interview you would the consular section. I presume IPS would make the arrangements for you. If not, you would need to ring the consular section in Düsseldorf and make an appointment to come in.

carbootsale

@Britinparis: thanks for that - I did phone them and got a German-speaking operator who was adamant there is 'kein passport teilung mehr'. Deafening silence from IPS...