I wonder whether it's worth focusing on applications from now and during the impending strike period (3 April-5 May)?
My wife's passport had a year to run, but its last 6 months were the grace period (i.e. over 10 years) useless for travelling in the EU/Schengen area from October on. Plus we have extensive travel plans for late 2023 and well into 2024 which would have resulted in a nightmare trying to get it renewed close to the expiry date. So we had always planned to send it off immediately after returning from Australia this week. Despite the strikes, with almost six months until our next trip we decided to send it off anyway since we can afford to wait.
So, here's the deal. We were told to send her passport to Hemel Hempstead, which we have done (sent special delivery and it's arrived, though we've not surprisingly had no confirmation of that from the HH office). My son's family's passports had all expired. They were told this week to send the renewal applications to Bootle. HH and Bootle, along with Corby, are not passport offices listed in the news to have workers going on strike. So, presumably they are going to operate normally. But how normally? And why are these passport offices different?
I'm wondering what's afoot: are all new applications now being directed to HH, Bootle, or Corby in advance of and during the strike weeks? It would be interesting to know whether some applicants are being directed to one of the striking offices, e.g. Peterborough and Durham. The story has largely disappeared out of the news so there's no information at all about how the passport offices are going to maintain as normal a service as possible. Currently, the Home Office guidance is still to allow ten weeks for renewal and that they expect to continue to process applications.
If people post their experiences we may gain a clearer picture.
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Applications during the strike period
Grantham Traveller · 24 Mar 2023, 07:13
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Yes, I am wondering about this as well. My second child was born nearly 5 weeks ago and we sent off his documents to Corby nearly 2 weeks ago. I feel really on tenterhooks as we live abroad and would like to be able to take him to visit family in the May half term but obviously cannot do this without a passport. The anxiety is real!! I will of course update once i have any news :-/
I'm not sure that's the case. I applied both for a child renewal and a first child passport on 19/03/2023 and with both I had to send the documents to Newport which is one of the striking offices. They updated to say they had received the documents for both on 23/03/2023 but nothing since.
I can only wish you well. We had an email today (Thursday 30 March)to say my wife's passport (standard renewal) has been approved at Hemel Hempstead and sent for printing. We had an email on Monday (27 March) acknowledging receipt of the old passport, which had actually been delivered (by SD) to them on 23 March. Based on other people's experiences we ought to have the passport by early next week. This is rather interesting because it certainly doesn't provide a picture of passport offices choking under an impending backlog of applications as the strike approaches, but obviously we have no idea how applications are being distributed or what will happen next week, especially to the striking offices (which Hemel Hempstead and Corby aren't).
Thanks - I'm hoping it won't be too much longer (we go away in July). Adult renewals seem to be quickest, my husband got his done through the Liverpool office in less than two weeks in February. The applications do seem to be distributed randomly.
Some good info here about the process, seems once it is approved the passports are printed and sent out from a third-party company https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/where_are_passports_printed#comment-101021
That's a very interesting post kingClackers. Thank you. So, from reading the link I see that once the passport has been approved and electronically sent for printing it effectively passes out of the hands of HMPO and is transferred to the third-party French printing contractor in Durham and then on to the courier. This ought to mean that anyone whose application reached the approval stage by Friday (31 March) ought to be safe, even if their application went to a an office where staff are striking from Monday.
I note also that a period of time lasting c. 36-40 hours (usually closer to 39 hours) generally elapses between approval and printing, and that the latter can occur at any time of day or night, seven days a week. My wife's passport was printed just before 0100 this morning. Since it's a weekend we won't expect it before Monday or Tuesday. However, we gave our landline number because we receive no mobile signal in the house so I am not sure if we'll get a tracking number.
It will be interesting to see what happens to other applicants from Monday onwards. Either the process leading to approval at striking offices will slow down drastically or the contingency plans will kick in and nothing will change.
My wife's (normal adult renewal) passport turned up at 4.25pm on Tuesday 4 April. That's 13 days since applying (inc two weekends)- application sent to Hemel Hempstead. It was printed just before 1am on Saturday 1 April. I've uploaded the details to this site but I made a small mistake: it was delivered by DHL, NOT TNT. We never received any tracking notification so had no idea when it was going to show up.
It's early days yet but I'm mightily glad we sent the application in when we did, despite the strikes, and ignored those dire warnings about massive delays. Now we can relax (mine expires in seven years). I hope those whose applications are still pending get good news soon.
Me too, so glad we sent them in when we did. Both were submitted on 19/03/23 and one was turned up yesterday with TNT and the other today by DHL. Can relax now.
I am getting concerned that my passport ended up on the desk of someone who's now on strike and won't be seen till may.
I applied from abroad, getting my passport received at the Liverpool office by Friday 24th. But it has now sat there with no further update to now. I wouldn't be as worried if I hadn't seen a number of applications on here received after mine and completed.
Calling the helpline and emailing the form was no help as I was told it was received and “would be looked at”. Considering I have travel booked on 22nd, and have to do some paperwork to update my residency documents here with the new passport details, this is far from ideal.
Although some people are still reporting to this site a very quick turnaround on applications it's quite noticeable that these are largely applications sent to the (apparently) non-striking HMPOs at Bootle, Corby, and Hemel Hempstead (though I spotted one that went to London). It's impossible to know whether this is representative of the wider picture since the sample is self-selecting. It may be that applications sent to other HMPOs which hadn't been processed by the end of last week before the strike started are indeed sitting in a pile gathering dust now.
My wife's took thirteen days (Hemel Hempstead), arriving here on 4 April, but another family member had theirs back today (6 April). That took only seven days from applying to receiving the passport (Bootle), which is remarkable.
The Home Office is sticking to the 10-week waiting time for the obvious reason that it will probably be easily able to meet that, even with the striking HMPOs, while I'll bet they are silently processing applications as fast as possible where they can. It's a pity it's all so opaque - it would be interesting to know if some applications are still being sent to the striking offices, or whether as many as possible are now being directed to the non-striking ones. The story seems to have disappeared from the news.
I can only imagine how frustrating this is for Saracen and others in the same position.
Thanks for the thoughts. Interesting: this site only mentions Liverpool (Bootle) but mine was sent to Old Hall St., Liverpool. Is that different. I know Liverpool is on strike too. I was always a bit confused about why the Bootle in brackets.
What frustrates me is that applications from abroad have no way of paying more for a faster service. I even tried repeatedly to book a Same Day appointment in London on a recent trip but could never find availability. I guess I can do nothing but wait and see… and Easter weekend means 4 days of nothing!
My passport renewal was approved today (Saturday) from the Corby office at just before 8am, so positive that things are happening even over the Easter break.
If you look at Latest Passport Waiting Times on this site it's still overwhelmingly the case today (but not 100% exclusively) that those currently reporting receipt of passports had originally sent their applications to Bootle, Corby, or Hemel Hempstead in the last 2-3 weeks.
It would be most instructive to know whether these three HMPOs are responsible for most of the applications being processed at present, or whether there are loads of other applications which have been sent to the striking offices and which are now in limbo or being processed far more slowly and we're just not hearing about them.
However, the story seems to be dead in the news which suggests there aren't many people (yet?) being stuck without passports due to the strikes.
I'll guess DragonNinja that your passport will be printed within 39-40 hours of approval (that seems to be the norm, regardless of day or night, so I predict by c. 0200 on Monday morning) and you might get it by Wednesday next week.
Thank you, big relief, that it's looking like arriving soon.
Here's my application history, just for completeness.
Application approved 7:47am on 8 April 2023
Documents received 8:25pm on 31 March 2023
Application received 10:54am on 29 March 2023
Application submitted 10:53am on 29 March 2023
The interesting details from your timeline, DragonNinja, show that documents at HMPOs are also being worked through during the evening to be recorded as 'received' against individual applications, and passports are being approved even early in the morning on a weekend day, despite it being a bank holiday weekend. Along with clear evidence of passports being printed in the middle of the night (my wife's was printed after midnight last Saturday), this points to procedures carrying on at all hours. I wonder if that's normal or part of the contingency plans for the strike weeks?
However, it ain't arrived until it's arrived so nothing is guaranteed until then. Bear in mind it could be delivered by DHL (as my wife's was) or TNT and that you may well not get any tracking information beforehand. You might, but we didn't.
We're not planning to go away until June, so should be pretty safe now, provided they don't get lost! If it was the full 10 weeks it would have been a different story.
If anyone's interested, as well as my wife's (13 days Hemel Hempstead) we have three other family member passport renewals in the last fortnight:
1. Bootle, adult renewal 12 days from initial application, new one delivered 5 April, a week after the old passport was delivered to HMPO.
2. Bootle, child renewal, applied the same day, printed on 8 April, now en route.
3. Bootle, adult renewal but requiring maiden to married name changed, applied the same day as 1. and 2., email to say it was being printed 8 April. The human intervention to check marriage certificate seems to have had an impact of only about 4 days.
Both 2. and 3. should be delivered by 12 April, exactly 14 days after all three applications' old passports were delivered to HMPO Bootle.
The Independent has a story though that the 10-week rule is going to stay, clearly so HMPO can cover its back: https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/passport-office-10-week-rule-b2316573.html
Here's an extract if you can't access that:
Today, three in 1,000 applications take longer than 10 weeks. And, according to Matthew Rycroft – permanent secretary at the Home Office – there are no plans for reducing the target time to its pre-Covid level.
“We have actually decided to keep it at 10 weeks,” he told MPs. “We know that it will be spiky and there will be times when it will take the full 10 weeks.
“We are going to keep the 10 weeks, because we know we will need that flexibility at some point during the year.”
Interestingly the same story refers to people unofficially holding two or more UK passports. Apparently, short of manually checking against names, HMPO has no way of checking if people have two passports. Certainly sounds like a way round the renewal problem - but I'm amazed it happens.
Update on my application history:
DHL first text 10:01am on 12 April 2023
Sign your passport email 08:14am on 12 April 2023
Passport printed 9:10pm on 11 April 2023
Application approved 7:47am on 8 April 2023
Documents received 8:25pm on 31 March 2023
Application received 10:54am on 29 March 2023
Application submitted 10:53am on 29 March 2023
I am really concerned. I originally applied for my first adult passport months ago, but due to confusion on my part it was eventually withdrawn. I called yesterday and they told me to I had to resubmit my application, but to just send my full birth certificate with a cover letter explaining that they have the rest of the documents. When I originally submitted my application it took over three weeks for them to even acknowledge they received these documents. I am supposed to be giving my exchange host university in Hong Kong my passport details by the 15th of May, and I feel like I'm never going to be able to hit this deadline if it's as slow as last time, with these strikes on top of that. They ask me to send the documents to an office in London, and from what I've read here this is going to be one that will be very slow to process anything. As it's a first adult passport I can't speed up the application. I have no idea what to do.
I am still stuck at this for an overseas renewal:
Documents received 24 March 2023
Application received 19 March 2023
Application submitted 19 March 2023
I called the helpline a few days ago and a very helpful lady said she'd put a note on the application.
Called again today and was answered by someone who sounded half asleep (remote work from bed?). They said the examiner had not even looked at the note from some days back. So it really does seem like my file was assigned to an examiner just before the strike and they then disappeared. Am I really now stuck waiting till May? There has got to be a way to make sure this isn't the case!
Is there a reason overseas applications should take any longer than local ones to examine?
Final update on my application history:
2 adult & 1 child renewal arrived on 13 April 2023
DHL first text 10:01am on 12 April 2023
Sign your passport email 08:14am on 12 April 2023
Passport printed 9:10pm on 11 April 2023
Application approved 7:47am on 8 April 2023
Documents received 8:25pm on 31 March 2023
Application received 10:54am on 29 March 2023
Application submitted 10:53am on 29 March 2023
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