jmacfadyen

Hi, paperwork wielding wife of an expat here. I'm getting ready to send in the renewal for my husband's passport and am wondering a couple of things:

1.) The photo size. We got the British sized photo at Walgreens, but the machine they use to cut the photos will only actually cut them to the US sized passport. I was thinking we should just go back and get a US sized photo and submit that but I'm not sure.

2.) Countersignature. He's 47 years old and has a mustache in the old passport photo but no mustache now. I don't know any expats that fit the fairly strict standards they seem to want so I'm not really sure how to go about getting a countersignature if we do get one. Anyone know how strict they are on this one?

We're waiting on the renewal so we can get his ITIN and do our taxes so I want to get it right the first time.

I noticed on the site they say to send the application via courier. I actually work about 15 miles from the British Embassy in DC and could take it there during an extended lunch break or in the morning. Does anyone know if they'll let you drop the application off? If not, will USPS be okay (maybe next day or second day service)?

lansbury

Get Walgreens to print the photos on a sheet and trim them yourself, that's what I did. If you don't know any Brits to countersign, an American who otherwise fits the criteria is acceptable.

jmacfadyen

That's kind of the tricky part. We don't really know any Americans that fit the criteria either. I have a friend that's a US government contractor that said she'd sign but I'm not sure if that would meet the requirements or not.

lansbury

Someone like your doctor would be OK, they would probably charge. Send the forms to someone in the UK, obviously slows things down a bit. Failing that has his appearance changed so much that it needs to have a countersigned photo. Can you see from the old passport photo that it is the same person.

Bob

Don't get the photo's trimmed. Seems to be the advice from pretty much every passport related thread over the last, forever.

As for the photo, if he isn't recognisable from the old photo, any professional will do. Teacher, accountant, doctor, dentist, bank manager.

jmacfadyen

So do you just send the sheet with the two photos as is to the embassy then? The main difference with his appearance is the mustache. He had one in the old passport photo and doesn't have one now so I'm not sure if it's really that big of a difference. You can still pretty much tell it's him.

lansbury

From what you say the photos should be OK without a counter signature. Just include the photos with the application. The worst that can happen is they will require you to send countersigned photos.

Jscl

Yes, just send the sheet with the two photos in.

Last time I had my passport renewed (2011?ish) I just got a friend with a decent sounding job title to countersign, she wasn't English. When my hubby renewed last year we didn't bother with a countersignature and they accepted it. In both cases we were concerned we looked different because we were reasonably fresh faced in the old ones, and haggard looking in the new ones , hubby has about half the hair he did in the early one! I don't think they'd care about a moustache being there/not there.

judesM

epassportphoto.com has been recommended to me by a British friend. You can upload yr photo taken by your own camera and then size it on the site according to your country's passport photo size requirements. Then upload the photo to Walgreens or any place that does photos and pick it up from there.

Apparently the site is legitimate. I have not used it yet but probably will.

ian-mstm

The site may be legitimate, but the passport photo sizes are totally wrong for a number of countries - including the 2nd largest country in the world.

Ian

Mummy in the foothills

We have no UK friends in the US, so had US friends sign the backs of Dh's passport photo as he had changed a lot in 10 years. I had one of the childrens school teachers sign.

penguinbar

When we renewed my husbands passport last year we didn't get anyone to countersign. He had facial hair in his old passport photo and he doesn't have any now. There were no issues except that the embassy was really backed up at the time and it took months for him to get it.

lisa67

Just renewed mine. I did get my photos countersigned.
Only took 4 weeks for the renewal.