Current turnaround time for new British passport

[KannikaP]

12 minutes ago, youreavinalaff said:

Back under the bridge for you.

Please explain.

[hotandsticky]

A friend's passport was just turned round in 8 days.

 

Submitted Wednesday 25 October Back Friday 3rd November - 8 working days 🙂

[brewsterbudgen]

On 11/3/2023 at 5:00 PM, hotandsticky said:

A friend's passport was just turned round in 8 days.

 

Submitted Wednesday 25 October Back Friday 3rd November - 8 working days 🙂

 

Good to hear.  8 days is fantastic.

[transam]

2 minutes ago, brewsterbudgen said:

 

Good to hear.  8 days is fantastic.

Indeed, mine took 15 weeks .............🥴

[owl sees all]

Mine took 7 weeks this year. My mate Rick got one done in less than 4 weeks; last month.

[Neeranam]

On 10/20/2023 at 1:23 AM, stubuzz said:

Do you still need somebody to countersign for renewals?

My daughter needed this 3 months ago.

[Neeranam]

On 10/19/2023 at 10:33 PM, Maybole said:

Just confirm your PS. My wife has her Thai Passport in her Thai name, but her UK one in mine.

She will not be able to renew her British passport.

I was told that I can't renew my British passport if I have a different name on my Thai one. 

[Eff1n2ret]

12 hours ago, Neeranam said:

She will not be able to renew her British passport.

I was told that I can't renew my British passport if I have a different name on my Thai one. 

I'm not sure this is still the case. Please see my post on the previous page dated October 20.

[Neeranam]

31 minutes ago, Eff1n2ret said:

I'm not sure this is still the case. Please see my post on the previous page dated October 20.

OK, thanks

[rasg]

On 10/19/2023 at 4:33 PM, Maybole said:

Just confirm your PS. My wife has her Thai Passport in her Thai name, but her UK one in mine.

Same here. It took a grovelling letter to the Passport Office in London as my wife's Thai passport was in her maiden name but they simply added an observation page to her shiny new British passport. I was amazed to see it arrive in 10 days so I had a bit of pressure from the missus to book somewhere so she could use it for the first time.

 

  

On 11/4/2023 at 2:18 PM, Neeranam said:

She will not be able to renew her British passport.

I was told that I can't renew my British passport if I have a different name on my Thai one. 

It is possible but I explained to the pp office that my wife would change her name the next time she or we go to Thailand. She did try in 2019 but found she needed our marriage certificate and a translation while she was in Thailand. The annoying thing for us was we submitted my wife's citizenship in her maiden name so her two passports would have matching surnames and part way through the process the HO called and offered to change her citizenship certificate to her married name. All done and dusted now thank goodness.

Edited November 25, 2023 by rasg
Additional answer

[rasg]

On 10/23/2023 at 1:03 AM, OJAS said:

I agree that using an agent is probably the best way to go for those of us who don't live within a stone's throw of the VFS offices in Bangkok or Chiang Mai. It is, however, outrageous IMHO that we Brits appear to be alone among Western nationals living in Thailand in having to fork out an extra 5,000 THB solely in order to make the cumbersome procedures with which we are faced at passport renewal time reasonably tolerable in practice.

I'm pretty certain it was Teresa May who came up with the matching names requirement when she was the Home Secretary and I'm not sure that it works both ways. ie. It's a UK requirement, not a Thai requirement.

[Neeranam]

2 hours ago, rasg said:

Same here. It took a grovelling letter to the Passport Office in London as my wife's Thai passport was in her maiden name but they simply added an observation page to her shiny new British passport. I was amazed to see it arrive in 10 days so I had a bit of pressure from the missus to book somewhere so she could use it for the first time.

 

  

It is possible but I explained to the pp office that my wife would change her name the next time she or we go to Thailand. She did try in 2019 but found she needed our marriage certificate and a translation while she was in Thailand. The annoying thing for us was we submitted my wife's citizenship in her maiden name so her two passports would have matching surnames and part way through the process the HO called and offered to change her citizenship certificate to her married name. All done and dusted now thank goodness.

Interesting. @Arkady do you know anything about this?

Maybe Naturalized Brits can have passports with two names but Naturalized Thais can't?

[rasg]

The general rule in the UK is that the names must be the same but there are quite a few reasons why some from other countries can't. They treated my wife's case as an exception. It's all on here:

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents/names-aligning-names-on-foreign-documents-accessible#When_observations_cause

 

I was worried my wife was going to have problems getting a UK passport at all without having to travel to Thailand to change her name. In my research the Thai Embassy came up trumps. It's possible to change the details on a tabian baan (sp) without going to Thailand. It took almost a week before they replied but you need to give a member of your family or friend, power of attorney and they can do it for you.