Passport renewal - current wait times? Old Passport sent but still not tracking?

Mark7799

We've done two this year - both were received within seven business days of posting the old passports. Getting the updates via text and email was also great.

LightningBolt

I was wondering this myself.  I sent my old passport by tracked delivery on Friday.  It was confirmed as delivered when I checked the status with Royal Mail yesterday early afternoon.  It's annoying that the online passport tracking service says at this point that there's a "gap" before the status is reflected there, but gives no indication of how big this "gap" is.  I think it a reasonable expectation that this would update on the same day.  If one can't count on the basic fact that the passport has been received being reflected in the system in a timely manner, it defeats the point of the tracking system somewhat.

In the end, it registered as received around 20:30.  Now it says
"When we’ve finished checking your application, we’ll update this page."
How long does the "checking your application" stage typically take?  The only info I can see about timescales is
"You’ll usually get your passport within 3 weeks."
And are there more stages, besides printing the passport and actually sending it out?

I have further thoughts on how the service could be a lot better....