British passport renewal

[HonkieH]

Wonder if any fellow Brits have done their passport renewal this year(2023) and how did it go? 

There were a few blogs but it was done in 2017 and 2020. Has anything changed? The British Embassy in Bangkok has long queues or not? 

[brewsterbudgen]

It's nothing to do with the Embassy any more.  You submit the form, photos, supporting documents and a colour photocopy of every page of your current passport at the HMPO office at VFS in either Bangkok or Chiang Mai.  They send it off to Liverpool and hopefully the new passport is issued and sent to Thailand in 8-10 weeks.  You then go to VFS again to pick it up and get your old passport 'clipped'.

 

You can use an Agent if getting to Bangkok or Chiang Mai is not easy.

[BobBKK]

I just did it - within three weeks got my new Black Passport. Used the Passport office in Chiang Mai (VFS) flawless service.

[brewsterbudgen]

15 minutes ago, BobBKK said:

I just did it - within three weeks got my new Black Passport. Used the Passport office in Chiang Mai (VFS) flawless service.

That's brilliant if it's now down to 3 weeks!  

[theoldgit]

As has already been pointed out the Consular Section are not involved in the renewal of Britsish Passports, they haven't been for a decade or so, applications are handled via VFS who, with all their faults, provide a pretty good service https://visa.vfsglobal.com/tha/en/gbr/hmpo.

 

I received my new passport last month three weeks after I applied on the 23 December.

 

There's a long running thread on the subject here How-long-to-renew-uk-passport though you may need to sort out the wheat from the chaff, as this is not a Consular subject, I'll close the thread.