Recent UK Passport Applicant Timelines

Requested long form birth certificate even though short form contained all citizenship information of child and parents. No acknowledgement of receipt of this document which was sent later, but the passport was approved and printed the day after tracking indicated it was received. Passport received 3 days after printing and documents 3 days after that.

Hardly got any updates. Had to write to the MP to force them to get on with it and finally get an interview done. Without MPs help they refused to give any reason for delay.

needed to provide a second person to confirm identity documents received June 5 Passport printed June 17

Person confirming identity was deemed not eligible although we had used them twice before. My daughter's birth certificate did not have my middle name as it was optional to include but the passport application had my middle name. They asked for proof of name change (which never happened) after a phone call to clear things up it was approved.

HMPO are useless, approved one sons passport with documents requested at application. Asked for two separate additional documents, a letter with grandparents information which already had (birth and marriage certificates), and fathers birth certificate when had already issued my renewal.................. They are disorganised, obstructive and intransigent. They need to get their process aligned so people do not have to courier multiple sets of documents with significant cost. Seems to be at the discretion of people rather than a defined process which should be!!

Process took 40days (I applied from Australia) and was easier than I thought it would be. Once the docs were received, they asked a couple of follow up questions (I suspected they might) and provided an email address to send the info to, so not having to post more docs sped things up! Over all, good experience compared to a lot of other people.

Paper application so not able to track, had to phone up. Phoned several times and always told the same thing that it hasn't been processed yet. Initially it seemed VFS had put the DOB wrong in system which was stressful to rectify as i couldnt pass security questions. Managed to move interview forward from 2 weeks wait to a bit earlier which helped. First interview didnt go ahead because i was never sent the teams link and office was closed on weekend so noone i could speak to. Wasn't requested to send any further docs and application took 8 weeks total even though it said 18 week wait when I applied. So it was quicker than expected but stressful nonetheless.

Application submitted: 30 March 2026 Identity confirmation emails sent: 30 March 2026 Documents posted from Cyprus: 31 March 2026 Documents received by HMPO: 10 April 2026 (10 days after posting) Application approved: 25 April 2026 Total time from submission to approval: 26 days Passport collected: 5 May 2026 (Paralimni DHL office, Cyprus) Total time from submission to receipt: 36 days Additional notes for Cyprus applicants: DHL only operate one flight per week into Larnaca, arriving on Monday mornings via Leipzig and Athens. Factor this into your planning as if your passport misses the Monday flight you will wait another week. We were not asked for any supporting documentation beyond the standard application. Documents were posted from Cyprus on 31st March and received by HMPO on 10th April. The Paralimni DHL office (open Monday to Thursday only) confirmed collection was available the morning after the flight landed.

Absolute circus, complete lack of clarity with regards to which documents we needed. There was a delay as the original birth certificate we received from the hospital (that was already in English on the reverse of the document) was rejected as it was an international version. We had to order a shorter document and have it translated at great expense (£70) from the ONLY translation service in the WHOLE OF SWITZERLAND that the British embassy recommends as an official translation service. It’s ridiculous and backwards. We also had to provide a signed and dated letter with British grandparents details due to an already known policy change. Why this wasn’t requested at the initial round of documents is beyond me. It caused enough of a delay that we had to cancel holiday plans as they retained her Swiss passport for the duration of the two month application process… we still don’t have it back.

We sent the requested documents via USPS International Priority Express, and it took almost 2 weeks for them to arrive at the passport office. The documents were marked as received on April 2, but we had received delivery confirmation on March 30. We did not have to send any additional documents before the passport was received.

Very good. It took a long time for the “documents received” to happen but otherwise seemed fairly well inline with my own previous experience and following everyone’s journey on this page helped.

Passport printed 1:39pm on 17 April 2026 Application approved 8:59am on 17 April 2026 MP contacted HMPO 15 April 2026 Documents received 10:07am on 3 April 2026 (tracked by Royal Mail as delivered on 26 March) Documents sent 10:27am on 24 March 2026 Application received 12:24am on 17 March 2026 Identity details received 12:24am on 17 March 2026 Ask someone to confirm your identity 4:17pm on 16 March 2026 Application submitted 4:17pm on 16 March 2026 The application finally was looked at and approved only after our MP contacted HMPO on our behalf, 1 month after submitting the application! Really poor.

The process was frustrating due to getting the required documents, but once they were sorted it was smooth and straightforward, if on the expensive side as we wanted to send documents from New Zealand securely. The frustrating part was we knew we needed my UK birth cert, which took a month to be processed and sent to me. Once that was received, we discovered we also needed marriage and birth certs for grandparents too, and again I needed to order from GRO, adding another month on top. All in all, from becoming aware of the need for our children to have British passports, to having the passport in our hands took four and a half months. We needed to get NZ passports for our kids done before we could apply obviously, and the contrast between those two processes was stark. Granted, these are NZ born children but the NZ process is entirely online and from submission to delivered passports was under two weeks. All in all - the UK system works, but being far away from it makes everything that much slower.

Learned we needed UK passports for our Canadian born children as their father is from the UK. Mailed initial documents end of February. We were asked for additional documents (address confirmation and original marriage certificate) march 13, which I mailed the same day. Passports approved march 28. Arrived April 8

Was requested to send birth certificate and marriage certificate plus translations for non-British grandparents. Didn't submit. Sent new birth certificates and marriage certificate for British grandparents as requested. Later received a request for a letter with grandparents' details including date of marriage and passport numbers. Submitted scan of letter by email, it was processed and approved within 30 mins.

28 February - submitted application and sent all documents via PostNL. Next time I would send via DHL as it took 10 days to arrive. 10 March - documents arrived at Corby 14 March - application marked as documents received. 26 March - passport approved 27 March - passport printed 1 April - passport arrived via courier For passport delivery I got an app from DHL on 31 March. I spent 2 weeks gathering my documents before applying (new copy of my birth certificate from GRO, copies of child birth certificate plus certified translation, arranging an EU ID card as back up ID as their EU passports were also required). Sent documents for 3 applications (2 children, one adult renewal) in one envelope. Did have to call/go on web chat to link as one of the child applications was marked not received. Once I contacted them it was updated within 24 hours as documents received. Still waiting for supporting documents to be returned. I chased up application 24 March - might be a coincidence but all 3 were approved within 24 Hours of contacting them. A very expensive and stressful process as everything moves so slowly. However, passport staff as helpful as they could be.

28 February - submitted application and sent all documents via PostNL. Next time I would send via DHL as it took 10 days to arrive. 10 March - documents arrived at Corby 14 March - application marked as documents received. 26 March - passport approved 27 March - passport printed 1 April - passport arrived via courier For passport delivery I got an app from DHL on 31 March. I spent 2 weeks gathering my documents before applying (new copy of my birth certificate from GRO, copies of child birth certificate plus certified translation, arranging an EU ID card as back up ID as their EU passports were also required). Sent documents for 3 applications (2 children, one adult renewal) in one envelope. Did have to call/go on web chat to link as this child applications was marked not received. Once I contacted them it was updated within 24 hours as documents received. Still waiting for supporting documents to be returned. I chased up application 24 March - might be a coincidence but all 3 were approved within 24 Hours of contacting them. A very expensive and stressful process as everything moves so slowly. However, passport staff as helpful as they could be.

Application requested birth certificate of application, current EU passport and mothers birth certificate. I knew this was incorrect from reading guidelines so sent applicants grandparents birth and marriage certificates too. Hmpo then also wanted a signed letter with the grandparents information (which I had already sent despite them not asking for this) which added unnecessary time and postage cost to the application.

HMPO no longer accept multilingual international Formula A birth certificates. I was unaware of this during the application and was instructed to send additional documents. This then required obtaining a certified translation of my child's German birth certificate (extra cost of €60).