Does anyone have recent experience of the emergency passport procedure at the British Embassy in Bern?
My 10 yo had 3 months left on his passport so we sent it for renewal to the UK at the beginning of this month, thinking we were well in time for travel on the 01 April (Easter hols). The status is still pending and given the recently announced passport workers strike at the beginning of April, we're starting to get nervous that his will be held up.
Given that we have a pre-booked holiday starting on the 01 April we've just applied online to a central emergency document booking system, so I just wanted to know the process and timelines assuming they give us an appointment next week.
Out of interest I looked it up and wow! The UK’s definition of an emergency is very broad! Hope it works out for you, but I expect there will be a lot of ‘emergencies’ in the queue.
We had the same scenario a few years ago for our little one, and luckily the old passport had been returned from UK, with the corner cut off as normal.
We were traveling by car, and ferry, up through France, UK, see family and holiday in Scotland. No problems at all, until the final passport check in Dover, UK passport control suggested we could 'go back home and wait for the new passport' thinking home was in the UK !!!! French counterpart sitting next to him, just laughed.
Castro, try and phone UK Bern embassy, they are the best to advise on times and possibilities. Good Luck.
I got a new pass on Thursday but using the standard online application procedure. The whole thing took just under 4 weeks. The following is the tracking information which I've assembled. I used a standard tracked mail service from here (Einschreiben) for the old pass. That itself took 9 days.
Passport Received by me 23. March 13:20 from DHL
>Passport printed 6:04am on 18 March 2023
>Application approved 12:34pm on 17 March 2023
>Documents received 9:43pm on 10 March 2023
Royal mail delivered document packet to passport Office 09.03.2023 08:01
Documents (old pass etc.) posted by me 28.02.2023 11:25
>Application received 3:39pm on 27 February 2023
>Application submitted 3:39pm on 27 February 2023
> = UK Passport Office tracking information
Not having a passport for a month is a pretty serious restriction. I know people might say a holiday is a frivolous reason for an emergency document but that just lets the Passport office off their hook. A simple passport renewal for a minor with all documents in order shouldn't take a month.
OH sent his at the beginning of the year, before strikes, and he was really pleased as it only took 1 month. Seems that 1 month is quick, in normal times.
Hope they will issue emergency passport, but not sure they will for a holiday. Fingers crossed.
In this respect an emergency is whatever the UK passport office define it and clearly you meet it:
By comparison the Irish passport office define it as:
Fingers crossed for you.
The UK has been advising of a 10 week wait for a while now!
This is crazy! CH takes a week and Italy you walk out with your passport in under 30 mins. What the heck is wrong with UK for it to need 10 weeks?
Shortage of staff, and currently, strikes.
Would it be color related or were they always slow?
You are comparing a remote application for a replacement pass (in the case of the UK pass) with a personal application for a replacement Swiss pass in Switzerland. In the latter case, you take your old pass/identity card with you, to a designated pass issuer, and your photograph and fingerprints are taken in such a way that it is clear that the applicant for the replacement pass is indeed the holder of the old pass. For a remote application, as in the case of applying for a replacement UK pass from Switzerland, it may not be so clear, especially where there is a substantial difference between the old and new photos and some time has to be built in for possible follow up checks. Of course, time also has to be allowed for the return of the old pass, delivery time of the new pass, strikes etc. etc. Incidentally, if a Swiss passport holder renews that pass in a foreign country, they must appear at an embassy/consulate for the photograph and fingerprint session https://www.fedpol.admin.ch/fedpol/e…schweizer.html .
Having said all that, the 10 weeks is still very long.
Yes you are right you would need to go to the consulate/embassy but again, it takes 3-4 weeks for a Swiss pass from abroad and again, you walk out with your Italian one from an Italian consulate (30 mins - tried in Geneva, Zurich and Singapore). So I still got get the 10 weeks? All the things you are mentioning are the same for every country or is the issue that you cannot go the UK consulate to do this?
You cannot go to a UK consulate to renew or apply for a passport, they did away with this option a long time ago (probably about 20 years ago).
All passport applications for overseas residents have to be done by post and sent to Durham to be processed ( the location for renewals from abroad has also changed many times over the years).
It typically takes 2-3 weeks to receive a new passport, sometimes even as little as 10 days but there are times when it can take longer such as during busy periods around holiday times or as is the case now when they are being affected by strike action.
If you are able to travel to the UK it’s possible make an appointment to do an in person renewal at the passport office and get the new passport back the same day. Lots of people choose this option.
The consulate/embassy is able to issue an emergency travel document for those who urgently need to travel but it is only valid for one trip.
The standard procedure for applying for a replacement UK pass from Switzerland is that you submit an online application and return your old passport by post. You receive the new pass by courier. There are also urgent/emergency procedures also, involving appearing at a UK consulate, which I have no experience of, such as https://www.gov.uk/emergency-travel-document . It is likely that @Castro will be using such a procedure and will report its, hopefully successful, outcome in due course.
EDIT
In the mean time, @Belgianmum has addressed your main points and types quicker than I can.
I would not imagine there are many embassies issuing passports locally now. The security technology needed would make it very expensive if it was done per embassy.
What a wonderful thing progress is !
I suppose that depends on what you mean by progress. Some countries may not want that possibly corrupt local officials can autonomously issue important identity documents like passports.
Just to update the thread.
We applied on Friday 24th, paid CHF 100 and got a link to upload all the documents on Monday 27th. Fortunately we didn't have to go to Bern for the interview, instead it was done virtually over Teams this morning.
The agent asked all three of us a few questions, asked us to hold up our IDs to the camera and that was it. Later on this afternoon we received confirmation that the emergency passport would be ready for collection tomorrow 29th.
So all in all its taken 3 working days.