There’s nothing more jaw droppingly frustrating than getting a couple of weeks before your holiday and realising one of the family passports is out of date! Of course, checking each of the travellers passports prior to booking a holiday is the best course of action but if you’ve been tempted by a too-good-to-miss last minute deal, these things can catch us out.
British passports
Child passports in the UK expire every FIVE years rather than the usual ten for adults.
This is the exact situation we found ourselves in. Three weeks prior to travel we checked over our family passports to find our eldest child’s passport was expiring the month of travel!
A fraught googling for the UK Passport office led us to the HM page for passports.
You might well know, if you’re an adult and require a passport you can book an appointment at the nearest passport office and stay on site until they print you (or a nominated person on your behalf) off a brand new passport. Easy, yeah?
For children, this service is not available, which complicates the situation somewhat.
Reading over the options, the quickest option for a child passport is the seven day postal service. This still means a trip to your nearest passport office but rather than collecting on the day, you must wait for your passport to arrive by post.
To start your renewal, you must first have a new digital passport photo. To make sure your photo is perfectly to specification, we recommend you use a local photography shop rather than taking a photo yourself on your phone or photo booth. This will up your chances of your photo being approved and not rejected.
Next step is to load up the gov.uk website and find your local office.Be prepared to travel! Once you’ve selected your preferred location, you can book an appointment to see an official.
Slots, luckily, can be available from the next day after booking. Booking a slot as soon as possible is recommended as the seven day waiting period applies from the point of your face to face appointment and not from the point you make your initial application on the website.
Once you book your appointment, you’re given a PEX number.
You must ask someone who’s known you and your child for at least two years to confirm their identity and fill in a few details. The person who you ask to do this must not be a family member, they must not live with you and they must have a career in a list of trusted professions. These include accountants, architects, lawyers, journalists, teachers or members of the clergy (to name a few.)
In most cases, the child does not have to attend the appointment, which makes life a little easier. You can check your individual requirements via the passport hotline or speaking to their chatbot service.
Once you get to your appointment (old documents and references in hand), the process is relatively easy. You must hand in your old documents and some information maybe taken if required.
Having read various threads on forums, it seems a few years ago, child passports were sent out a little quicker than they are now. We were informed by officials that in most cases, a child’s passport must remain within the passport system for at least five days. This is for child safeguarding purposes. If you have extenuating circumstances such as an ill family member, this may be taken into account and speed up the process. Booking a holiday will not meet extenuating circumstance requirements.
In our case, the passport arrived exactly seven days after the appointment, so do be prepared to wait!
Good luck with your renewal!