Timeline for first child passport(paper application sent via post office check and send)
Passport application sent – 21st Feb
HMPO received application – 24th Feb
Birth certificate received – 25th Feb
Application sat on processing for 3 weeks
Examiner approved application – 18th March
Printed passport – 22nd March
TNT collected passport – 30th March(they didn’t text me)
Passport expected – 1st April
36 days from HMPO receiving my application on the 24th Feb.
40 days if I count it from sending it at the post office via check and send.
Basically my partner and I both have British passports that are in date and my consignee used for her passport was in the British army and it still took the application 36 days.
Never been so relieved but I am going on holiday on the 5th April and I should get the passport on the 1st April, I left such a tight gap but so glad it’s over with to be honest.
Advice to anyone would be to keep chasing passport office, some of them try fob you of with a generic response especially if they can only see certain steps of the application and others are really helpful, the processing team are always helpful.
Took TNT 8 days to collect my daughters passport from when it had been printed on the 22nd March.
If I apply for another passport or renewal in the future, I will be using the fast track service and I won’t be using the post office as I found calling HMPO everyday just for a update due to not being able to see anything online due to doing a paper application quite annoying to be honest, however the post office was great help with the photos and application, other then the above.
I just found it stressful especially when the post office didn’t tell me about the 10 week approx wait so the 3-4 weeks normal wait luckily only turned into over 5 weeks.
Hope this helps someone!