How Far in advance can I renew my passport

agrinnall

Dean'sDilemma wrote: »

I thought you could only renew 6 months in advance if you wanted the finish date to coincide with that on your passport i.e. 10 years from your current expiry date.If you wanted to renew before does not the start date commence from the date it is received not the expiry date.Have I got that wrong!!!.

Yes. Murphy's link in post #3 will do the search for you, and this is the relevant paragraph from the gov.uk renewal page:

"You can renew your passport at any time. When you renew your passport, time left on your existing passport is added to your new one, up to a maximum of 9 months."

Wayne's_Woes

I renewed my passport just over 6 months prior to expiry through the Post office service. My new passport took just under 4 weeks to arrive. This was longer than I expected, but fortunately it did not cause me any inconvenience as I had no plans to go away until April.

Me4

Hi,

Please be aware that, after following the advice above, I received my new passport with a validity of 10 years - i.e. without the 5 months that were left on my old passport added. When querying this with the Passport Service, I was told the following:

From the 10th September HMPO will no longer be adding additional validity to any of their passports and all passports issued from this date will default to a maximum 10 years validity for adult applications and 5 years validity for child applications. International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) best practice recommends that the passport is valid for up to 10 years for adults, UK passports align with ICAO best practice.

Is this correct? There's nothing on the website that mentions this change.

Me4

elsien

It apparently did change on 10 September. See here. The info on the gov.uk page has been changed to remove the bit about extra months being added on.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5893848/passports-cant-add-remaining-months-on&highlight=

DonnaElmore

Hi! From what I’ve heard and read before, one can renew their passport even if it still has 9 months validity on it. That remaining validity can then be added to the new one. In my case, I renewed mine with the help of a passport renewal service provider when I only have 6 months left in it. Cause many countries these days require visitors to have at least 6 months left on their passport, so it’s best to renew your passport as early as possible to avoid any hassle on your trip.

photome

DonnaElmore wrote: »

Hi! From what I’ve heard and read before, one can renew their passport even if it still has 9 months validity on it. That remaining validity can then be added to the new one. In my case, I renewed mine with the help of a passport renewal service provider when I only have 6 months left in it. Cause many countries these days require visitors to have at least 6 months left on their passport, so it’s best to renew your passport as early as possible to avoid any hassle on your trip.

have you read the thread?


you cannot do what you are suggesting and there is no need to use a service provider

bradders1983

As thread bumps go, that was a bit of a fail.

Pollycat

Well, Donna's post would have been correct at the time the thread was started but now...Elsien's post immediately above Donna's reflects the current situation.

soolin

This is the danger of leaving old threads open- the information at the time of posting in 2017 is now wrong as things changed in late 2018!

jobbingmusician

Why don't you just lock it, with a comment about things changing? (There may be rules about locking I don't know about, but that's what I'd do! A comment something like 'this is one of the examples where reading an old thread really doesn't help. If you need up to date information, please Google and/or start a new thread.')