Historical waiting times

1st Adult Passport Waiting Times Over Time

This graph shows how the average waiting time for a first adult UK passport has changed over time. Use it to see whether processing times are rising or falling and when may be a better time to apply.

Current average

16 days

Latest published

29 July 2026

Change from previous

7 days faster than previous

Average waiting time over time

Averages are based on crowd-sourced applicant timelines. Individual applications can be faster or slower than the average.

What this graph shows

The line shows the published average waiting time in calendar days for 1st adult passport applications. Historical points come from the site’s archived weekly average exports; newer points continue automatically from the platform’s published wait statistics after that historical period ends.

Averages are crowd-sourced from applicant timelines submitted to Passport Waiting Time. They are a guide to typical processing times — not a guarantee for any individual application.