Writing here my experience hoping may help someone in coming days.

Applied for a renewal 3 months in advance and with in 2 weeks, we have our renewed passports in hand

1. You have to register on-line first and use this link for the same.
2. Once registered, print out the form. There would be few more fields in the form which you cannot fill on-line and you can fill them after taking print out.
3. In my case, I had to update my address, marital status and spouse details.
4. You can either visit Indian embassy in person or send all the documents by post. I visited in person and would recommend others the same too. However, its not mandatory to submit in person.
5. Documents to be sent/shared:
a. Application form.
b. Your current passport (original).
c. copy of your residence permit
d. copy of your address proof (required only if you are gonna update your address)
e. copy of your marriage certificate (required only if you are gonna update your marital status)
f. 2 or 3 photographs
g. Fee receipt (original). We paid 73 (renewal fee) + 2 (service fees) in UBS, Bern (the one near station).
h. registered envelop on your address.

No need to pay additional fee for address update or marital status update. Before you make a payment, better call up embassy and check with them how much to pay in case you have different scenario

With in 2 weeks, we got our passports. We received both old ones and new ones.

Indian embassy: http://www.indembassybern.ch

Not sure if they still have a requirement for passport photo to be 5cm x 5cm which is different than most of the country's passport and visa requirements of a photograph.

Just thought of sharing in case.

Thanks IamMG for your post! It is really helpful. Can you pls let me know where you took your passport size photos in zurich??

Am sorry, cannot point you to studio. However I do have a point for you.

Walk in to any of the studio and ask them for a passport photo with specifications. You can get spec from Indian Embassy, Bern.

I think Indian passport photo spec is exactly copy of USA. Check once before visiting any studio

Are there separate applications for Passport Renewal vs Passport Extension (mine expires in 2020, however only has 2 pages remaining). Also on the embassy's website it says that it can take upto 4-6 weeks so that makes me worried about submitting my original passport as that would restrict travels.

Also tried calling twice to the embassy (0041 31 350 11 30), nobody picked up. Any special tricks here?

Just call in morning hours until 12:30. They always pick when
I call. May be you called on a busy day :-)

Hi All,

Please share if there is any other way to track the passport renewal application status submitted at the Berne Embassy (other than calling the Embassy),
considering there is no acknowledgement provided by Embassy (Just the application number SWZBP*******).

Also much appreciated , if anyone who has recently submitted their application and got it processed, could share the experience (noted, it varies from person to person but still..)

Thanks in advance..!!

Tracking not possible. You can call if its too late. Normally you will get it in 6 weeks or less.

I also recently renewed my passport via the embassy at Bern. Note that you can still keep the passport with you during the renewal process. For that, you need to visit the embassy to submit the form and other documents, and sign a declaration form. After your new passport arrives, you have to mail the old passport (for cancellation), and they will send both passports back to you via registered post (you need to submit self-addressed stamped envelope while submitting the documents). Hope this helps.

Yes just ask for US visa photo☺️

I have same experience but Mine took almost 4 weeks and I have as holding my passport

Hi do we need marriage certificate to be attested by some one in switzerland? If yes let me know where and how to do this.? Or is it like only photo copy is enough

I got my passport renewed in 2014 via the Embassy in Berne and at that time, a self-attested copy of my marriage certificate (with Apostille) was enough to add my spouse details at the back of the passport.

Just in case you don't know, there is a new Consular facility in Zurich open for certain times of the year where you can drop-in your documents (if you prefer so) rather than going to Berne. See the link below for the times they are open this year.

http://www.indembassybern.gov.in/doc...and%202019.pdf

Oh ok great so self attested copy is enough and we need not mandatory provide originals for verification? and onemore question if we dp payment for passport in UBS bank and due to some reason if embassy asks us to ger more documents is this payment slip still valid? or actually how does this ?UBS payment slip validation works

More documents for what ? They can very well validate your payment slip (amount/date/payer) with their own bank account statement, no ?

Apologies for not being clear, More documents i mean let us consider i paid in UBS and then went to passport office for submission and realized that i forgot address proof or marriage certificate or photo was rejected so now i need to go back and make all documents ready so is payslip valid when i go next time also or do I need to pay again this was my question

No , the payment made is valid for the task until completed. So if you paid for a new passport and the photos were not correct , you would not have to make the payment again. The correct photos would have to be provided so there will be a delay in the task but never another payment.
What is it exactly you are applying for ?

Considering your hypothetical query, if in case one (or) multiple supporting documents are not in place during your passport renewal request submission, you can simply take all other documents (including the bankslips) with you and submit them together at a later date with the new set of "corrected" documents. Besides the payment slip, the Embassy can easily recognise/correlate your name/DOB/Old passport no. etc. with their bank account statements and the payment will not be "lost" out of nowhere.

If you ship the documents, it is always better to be right (even a day or two late) rather than act fast and make multiple attempts to correct the first set of mistakes. AFAIK, there is no way to track your application once you ship the documents to the Embassy other than calling them. So why not call or email the Embassy first (or ask EF members as you did/are doing now for a suggestion/clarification based on their experience) and clarify on "all" those issues where you feel you might go wrong?

Hi Everyone thanks for the guidance. It was really helpful. The people at embassy were very helpful and took all documents as suggested in website and in thread and it was accepted. I suggest people to call them once after you make ready ready all documents and discuss over phone so that you wont miss anything. Even if u miss they collect available documents and ask you to send the pending ones by post. Instead better valid once over phone and then visit. Many of them forgot to get self addressed envelope with total of 6.3 francs stamped. Few went to near by post office and got it. Thanks for the help