Refusing a British citizen a passport is actually quite a difficult thing to do.

Worst case scenario, you have to send in your other passport and it might delay your application for a week or so.

Indeed.

Who cares? I simply can't afford to mail my US passport to the UK authorities. Per US law, I have to use it to leave/enter the US - which I do quite frequently. It's more important to me that I hold on to my US passport than it is to get a UK passport. So if they allow me to keep it for good reason (and I have a good reason which me and my family have used several times successfully) and send in photocopies instead, then that's what I'll do. If they ever ask later for the US passport, I'll deal with that at the time but I have never heard of that happening to anyone.

So DON'T. It is not the British government's to ask for. It is the property of the United States government.

I just renewed mine. i also have a Canadian passport. I sent in the photocopy of my CA passport, colour, every page. No issues and they returned my colour photocopy with the uk old cancelled passport.

They returned the copies! That just makes a mockery of the whole thing.

It's a risk management decision.

An immaterial chance of being the outlier for whom the copy doesn't suffice, compared to more real risk of your U.S. passport being lost and you having to replace it. And even if you get the passport back, not being able to travel anywhere while you wait for it to be returned.

Your preaching to the choir. If you read what I wrote you'll know that I don't send in foreign passports. I never have. I always just send in a copy of the photo page. I've done this several times for myself and my family and I've yet to be asked for any original foreign passport.

+1

Exactly!

Great thread. This supports the conclusion that I'd reached internally that sending copies is the only logical way forward. It still amazes me that they would request this anyway but like previous posters, if it's asked for I will comply rather than lie on application.

I also sent my new US passport to the UK passport office when renewing my old UK passport.They did not return my US passport as they said they would when I enquired over the phone. Anyone else had this problem and how was it resolved?

They have KEPT your US passport? Why ever did you send it?!

If you've only just received your new British passport then any supporting documents (old passport, US passport) will be returned separately and usually arrive a few days after the new passport.

Thanks. that's good to know.