New Passport

irenton

I had to renew my passport as the old one had expired. I applied on May 25th and 20 days later I had a new passport. Not only that but as I applied online I was kept up to date with the progress of my application.

Westin

Good that you posted.  I suspect many have such experiences of relatively short renewal periods.  The UK media of course won’t report this and prefer to leave people thinking that it is 10+ weeks. 

TELLIT01

The reality is that the quality and speed of service varies greatly.  There will be good news stories such as that above, but plenty of horror stories.  I know one person who has been waiting well over 2 months for their daughter's first passport.

Westin

First passports, replacing lost passports or dealing with complexity when applications have been incorrectly completed will take longer as more checks are presumably required.  The bog-standard renewals should not take long (as the recent OP has found) but the media won’t report on the relative success of processing probably 90% of applications within 21 days. Better to paint to picture of doom.

Sandtree

Westin said:

First passports, replacing lost passports or dealing with complexity when applications have been incorrectly completed will take longer as more checks are presumably required.  The bog-standard renewals should not take long (as the recent OP has found) but the media won’t report on the relative success of processing probably 90% of applications within 21 days. Better to paint to picture of doom.

You'll also note that there has been no blanket press coverage since the situation improved... news is always slanted to the negative

Thankfully own passport renewal submitted in March was approved last week. On the basis it took them until mid May to raise their question it wasn't the "complexity" that caused most of the delay.

Sterling_A1

I applied on 10th May 2022 online for renewal of my expired (30th March 2016) passport and received the new passport fifteen (15) days later by courier.  I paid only the basic price and was informed by email of progress at each stage.  My wife's took 16 days and daughter's 25 days.  The three expired passports were sent to three different addresses as requested.

The new head and shoulder photograph I took with my hand held mobile telephone and uploaded was accepted.  My wife used a photobooth picture via a code provided by the booth.  My daughter's £8 photobooth picture was rejected during the online application so she reverted to submitting a 'selfie' taken with her mobile telephone which was accepted.

We experienced a very satisfactory service and would recommend using the online application process wherever possible.

Sterling_A1

PS:  As the old cancelled passports could not be used we paid no extra for their return so were surprised when return appeared to be by a courier service.

rufford155

Earlier this year I'm sure MSE reported that, for the EU post-Brexit, passports should have been issued less than 9 years and 9 months before the day of leaving the EU, but this seems to have been wrong.
Now the rule MSE states is that passports should be less than 10 years old on the day you enter AND valid for at least three months after the day you leave, that is TWO SEPARATE criteria.
Can anyone please confirm that their understanding is the same?
It's tempting to think these rules have been drafted deliberately to confuse us!

squizz11

we did two recently, one was bog standard renewal, the other one was a name change through divorce,   both took the same amount of time about 3 -4 weeks

neilm22

I sent in a renewal for my son’s passport online on 7th May. They confirmed receipt of his old passport on 18th May (email and automated update which also shows within online application). 

They have subsequently text me 3 times to say they have not received it, including twice after I have spoken to someone on the phone who said I would get a phone call from the Dept to confirm- which I didn’t, but did state he believed it had been received. I also received a letter last week to tell me to send the old passport. I am glad that some people are getting a good service as between this application nearly 8 weeks later and a new passport application for another child a few days prior to the one above, I have not had an amazing level of service thus far… 

CKhalvashi

Someone in a local Facebook group had about 10 days, others are waiting more than a month. It appears to be office specific, but I'm not sure which office is faster (and you won't get a choice in this matter).

Apply as early as you can is the advice being given and if you book something in the middle it's at your own risk, but do not waste time on the passport unnecessarily.