£72.50 for a passport renewal - wow!

balletshoes

Wammer wrote: »

Today? Note the date the article was written.

sorry about that - i just read the top line, which had today's date - i'll go change my earlier post.

notanewuser

Voyager2002 wrote: »

As explained above, a decision was made to fund consular services through a levy on passport fees rather than from general taxation.

Plus additional security costs at UK airports after 9/11.

lovesgshp

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Again, a choice to live in Italy.

Why not apply for italian nationality given its now your home and get an italian passport instead?

I have no idea, why I should apply for Italian nationality and no way would I do that, just to save a few pounds on a UK passport. That is a stupid answer, as I may not stay here. Perhaps I will move to Malaysia, so should I apply for a Malay one as well, if I move there?
The point was, that I have a UK passport, which I prefer to keep, but I get penalised for a straightforward renewal.
I choose to decide where I live in the world and what passport I would like to keep.

lovesgshp

@ Insideinsurance:
Just another point on a Italian passport, yes it is cheap to renew and as long as you stay within the EU, then not so bad. BUT travel outside then it gets quite expensive Euro 40+ per year to be paid as a stamp duty, for the years you leave the EU, so spend 5 holidays, say i.e. 1 every 2 years will cost a extra Euro 200.

http://www.esteri.it/MAE/EN/Ministero/Servizi/Sportello_Info/DomandeFrequenti/UfficiServiziConsolariEstero/Passaporti.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_passport

zerog

notanewuser wrote: »

Plus additional security costs at UK airports after 9/11.

These are mostly paid by the airline to the airport (except in the case of redemption flights, when they are fully paid by the passenger) - and show up in the "taxes and charges" section of your flight tickets.

They are mostly paid by the airline because airlines compete on the total fare.

lovesgshp wrote: »

The point was, that I have a UK passport, which I prefer to keep, but I get penalised for a straightforward renewal.
I choose to decide where I live in the world and what passport I would like to keep.

If you decide to live outside the UK, then you should be prepared to pay more for your passport renewal.

I believe that if one does not travel (or has another citizenship), one can delay renewing a passport for 2 years after expiry without needing to make an application from scratch.

PompeyPete

Voyager2002 wrote: »

As explained above, a decision was made to fund consular services through a levy on passport fees rather than from general taxation.

More like footing the bill for Labour's scandalous ID Card fiasco!

benjus

lovesgshp wrote: »

Wish mine only cost £72.50. Had a UK passport for about 50 years, but because I now live in Italy, it costs £128.00, plus £19.86 for courier fees to renew. We have just renewed 2 in the last few years.
They have just changed from Paris renewal centre to the UK, but price has not gone down.

Do you never visit the UK? As long as you're physically present in the UK and have an address the new passport can be sent to, you can use the standard passport application while visiting. Flights between the UK and Italy can be pretty cheap, especially at low season.

lovesgshp

benjus wrote: »

Do you never visit the UK? As long as you're physically present in the UK and have an address the new passport can be sent to, you can use the standard passport application while visiting. Flights between the UK and Italy can be pretty cheap, especially at low season.

Thanks for the advice, but I have not been back to the UK for about 6 years now. By the time I would have added in flights, car hire, airport parking here, etc, then it would probably cost more in the end.
It was meant as a general comment, as the passport now goes to the same UK renewal office as yours, yet nearly twice the price.

benjus

lovesgshp wrote: »

It was meant as a general comment, as the passport now goes to the same UK renewal office as yours, yet nearly twice the price.

Yes, I'm familiar with the process - I have family living abroad, so their passports need to be done this way. I suspect the higher cost is because they go into more detail with the checks; someone present in the UK can generally be assumed to either have been born here and never left or have successfully passed an immigration check, while someone applying from abroad would probably be considered a higher risk. They also accept countersignatories that have EU, US and Commonwealth passports, not just UK/Irish, so I guess verifying those is a more complex process.

And it's only twice the price if you include the courier fee, which I think is well worth paying - would you trust the Italian post office with your new passport?