Recent UK Passport Applicant Timelines

Surprisingly it was very straight forward. We had all documents ready though and translated. The DHL service is very efficient .

We submitted our daughter's application on 26 July 2026. There was a slight delay on our part in sending the required documents, which the passport office marked as received on 11 August. We were awaiting some original documents about the grandparents from the UK. We included both grandparents' birth certificates, even though they were not explicitly requested, as we had seen that other applicants were asked to send them at a later date. I think this also helped with the speed at which the outcome was received. The application was approved on 19 August and printed that afternoon. We received tracking details by 21 August, and the passport was delivered via DHL by the 26th. We are still awaiting the return of the supporting documents.

The application process was relatively straightforward, though it was slow and lacked communication during the months of waiting. I submitted the application on 1 April. Two months later, I was asked to provide additional documents; I resubmitted the same document I had originally provided, and this was accepted. One month after that, I received an invitation to schedule an interview. The passport application was approved two days after the interview and was ready for collection five days later.

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.