Just renewed our British Passports. Excellent service. Took selfies on the mobile phone, applied on line, posted old passports in....... new passports arrived 5 days later!
If anyone has not yet seen the new British Blue ones...... there has obviously been much effort gone into making it difficult to forge. However, I think the cover is very flimsy compared with previous versions and I find it staggering that the UK Government placed the contract to manufacture these with a French company!
A word of warning...... Be aware that Passport validity is now only 10 years from the date of issue. Hitherto, if you applied for renewal before expiry you were credited with up to 9 months extra on the expiry date of the new passport. This no longer applies. Also, in common with many other countries, entry to the EU now requires a minimum of 6 months remaining validity on your passport on the day of entry. This is 6 months before the end of the 10 year period since issue. In our case, at the previous renewal (some 10 years ago) we had several months remaining on our previous passports. They were issued in March 2011 with an expiry date in December 2021. With 9 months apparently remaining I thought we were good to go to Europe this summer (Covid rules permitting..... seems very unlikely now). So far as the EU is concerned this would not be the case. 10 years from issue expired in March.
Suggest others may be wish to check their passports now in case there is a rush and and a backlog when travel re-opens and folk discover they do not have a valid passport i.e. With a minimum remaining period of 6 months before 10 years from the date of issue.
If anyone has not yet seen the new British Blue ones...... there has obviously been much effort gone into making it difficult to forge. However, I think the cover is very flimsy compared with previous versions and I find it staggering that the UK Government placed the contract to manufacture these with a French company!
A word of warning...... Be aware that Passport validity is now only 10 years from the date of issue. Hitherto, if you applied for renewal before expiry you were credited with up to 9 months extra on the expiry date of the new passport. This no longer applies. Also, in common with many other countries, entry to the EU now requires a minimum of 6 months remaining validity on your passport on the day of entry. This is 6 months before the end of the 10 year period since issue. In our case, at the previous renewal (some 10 years ago) we had several months remaining on our previous passports. They were issued in March 2011 with an expiry date in December 2021. With 9 months apparently remaining I thought we were good to go to Europe this summer (Covid rules permitting..... seems very unlikely now). So far as the EU is concerned this would not be the case. 10 years from issue expired in March.
Suggest others may be wish to check their passports now in case there is a rush and and a backlog when travel re-opens and folk discover they do not have a valid passport i.e. With a minimum remaining period of 6 months before 10 years from the date of issue.
