Hello,

I have a query regarding my soon to be expired passport 26/06. I havent had the chance to renew it due to a lot of travel since last year.

I am going to the UK for 3 weeks on 5th June and I was going to apply whilst I am there, but reading the website it warns of their busy period is now and that its not guaranteed to be returned within 3 weeks. There is the fast track option but it requires a visit to the Passport issuing office in London, which I was hoping to avoid.

The other option I was considering is returning on my passport that will expire after I arrive back in CH and applying via Paris as I don't plan to travel for a while afterward. My question is, and I can't find the answer on the website, can I apply for a renewal of my British passport that would have expired during the application process to Paris? Will this be a standard renewal or will I need to start a whole new application process?

Any adive welcome. Thanks.

How do you plan to travel on the first trip. If you are flying I doubt you will be permitted to fly on a passport that is expired or almost expired if you try to fly out of UK to CH.

There are often cases of passport control areas requiring a passport be valid for more then 6 months to leave or enter some countries

Is the Swiss ID card considered to be a legal ID document for you to be able to use, when travelling between the UK and CH? If so, use that whilst getting the UK passport renewed.

Last time I renewed mine, I did use the fast track in London. It cost more of course, but was very straight forward and done within an hour.

Hi,

I have travelled to and from the UK 3 times this year already on my passport and have not been stopped. I also have been to and from Crete in the last two weeks and not be asked.

According to the Swiss website as an EU National it just needs to be valid to return back.

I assume you are going to the London area otherwise you could use one of the regional passport offices, like Peterborough, Newport, Liverpool, Durham etc. These tend to have shorter waiting times

Its worth booking an appointment when you fly over and sort out your passport out at one of the offices.
You cant really just turn up, and if you wait to book an appointment teh slots they may offer you may be unreasonable.
I had to get my daughters passport sorted with a few weeks to spare and it was fine, but as i said above i had to work around their time scales to make sure i did get it, not so easy when i had other children at school i had to pick up and the appointments they were giving me were all during school pick up or drop off!
Give them a bell and ask for their suggestion.

I was thinking about doing the quick renewal thing in London on a couple of day's trip, but when I rang the passport office I found out that it would not be that easy. I did not have anyone in England from the list of people who can countersign the photo near enough to do this quickly and if you renew a passport in the UK you need someone living there to sign the photo. It was going to be too much of a hassle to go to where I knew any "worthy" citizens who had known me for more than 2 years and could certify my photo.

I didn't have to have anyone sign my photographs, and in fact had them taken that morning on my way to the passport office in London. I was told that they were only needed for getting a new passport if the old one was lost or missing, but not when I was handing in th old one - that was the proof of identity.

I believe you're right. You only need a counter signature of you don't have your old one or if it's a new application.

Anyhow, I gave them a call. I can't book an appointment until 2 weeks before I want the appointment :-s so have I ring back next Friday. I think Peterborough looks like my easiest option. I'm nearly 5 months pregnant. The last thing I need is London stress and waiting times. Only just about managed that in my previous life!

Thanks for the advice people.

Parking at peterborough one was a bit of a Bother first time i went as didnt know where exactly it was!
Just bear that in mind when you go.
Wouldnt bother hanging around after though, peterborough is a dump! Lol ( having lived 20mins from the place i should know!)
Anyways goodluck!

If your passport is still valid for your return jouney to Switzerland then sending it off to Paris when you arrive back with only a day or two left on it won't be a problem. I used mine last year for a visit to the UK when it was within a few days of running out and the only 'inconvenience' was being reminded by people at the border both ways that it needed renewing.
I sent it straight off to Paris on my return and it would have expired the day it arrived at their office. I had no problems with renewing it, just filled in the usual form, sent them a large amount of dosh and it was returned in about ten days.

I agree with Anjela - the Paris thing is easy peasy and when we have used it - fast (a week for baby's first passport! Impressive). Download the forms from the internet and get your passport back in a couple of weeks. If you are not travelling, where is the worry?

As you say, you are pregnant - you wants to be traipsing around passport offices when you could be baby stuff shopping!!

That's exactly what happened to me. I had to go back for my mother's funeral and my passport was due to expire a couple of days after my return. I had it already in the envelope ready to post for renewal but luckily hadn't posted it. I called the passport office to double check before traveling just to make sure (I was already stressed enough by my mother's sudden death and didn't want any additional problems) and they confirmed that my passport was valid until the day it expired. Certain countries require you to have certain amount of time left but Europe is no problem.

I sent everything to Paris when I got back and received my new one a week later.
Certainly much less hassle than having to go to the passport office. I would have had to go to Liverpool which is a couple of hours from my family home.

I understand that leagally in the UK, one can enter and leave ( or at least a Brit can) with an alternative form of ID. I recall reading an article about this in a flight magazine (probably a BA one) at some stage.

I am curious as to whether anyone here has tried that. I imagine getting back into CH with the Swiss ID card may not be a problem, but wonder if the UK border control would object to it at their border control.

Mmmhhh ... I really would think this is not true - because we don't have any other forms of legal identification except our passports (and arguably these aren't actually ID but that's a lawyer splitting hairs ..).

You can enter the UK with other forms of official ID if you are non UK citizen - my husband travels within Europe with just his French ID card, but as we do not have ID cards in the UK, it's just passports I'm afraid for the Brits. I am not sure if this is restricted to EU citizens or not.