# UK Passport Renewal From Egypt



## Cris45 (Nov 11, 2013)

I have been a long time lurker but feel I now need to pass on some information. For several years UK passport renewals have had to be posted out of country to be processed. This used to be to Paris but since July the location has become Durham, England. As posted elsewhere on this forum the passport office previously allowed renewals of passports to be made from Egypt with an embassy endorsed copy of the current passport to accompany the application.

I applied for a renewal of my child’s passport two weeks ago via DHL but before that made the trek to the embassy and all was confirmed about sending the passport copy with embassy stamp. Last Friday I received an email from Durham stating the original passport was required for the application to be processed. The Cairo embassy now tells me this decision was confirmed to them by the Durham office one week ago. After two rounds of emails with Durham protesting the advice I am now about to start an appeal procedure.

This all seems to me frankly ridiculous. We are barely 3 months into a second revolution/ coup with a curfew still in place. The FCO’s own advice for the country is to carry official ID at all times and Cairo is still considered unsafe to travel to.

During the first revolution the Consulate in Alexandria where we live was as much use as the proverbial chocolate tea pot. Effectively they shut up shop and ran away. In view of the present turbulence I am not prepared to send off my child’s passport and if necessary will have to arrange another trip to the UK to get it processed. Similarly I suggest that If anyone needs a passport in the next 9 months they make plans to visit a UK passport office.


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## canuck2010 (Jan 13, 2010)

They have similar procedures for the Canadian Embassy, just make a photocopy of your old passport with your visas. The Embassy can always issue an emergency passport if needed.

I actually renewed my passport last year in Cairo, and the Embassy kindly expedited the renewal process in less than two weeks; they wanted to be sure I had the new passport just in case of the need to flee the country.


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## bermac (Mar 1, 2011)

canuck2010 said:


> They have similar procedures for the Canadian Embassy, just make a photocopy of your old passport with your visas. The Embassy can always issue an emergency passport if needed. I actually renewed my passport last year in Cairo, and the Embassy kindly expedited the renewal process in less than two weeks; they wanted to be sure I had the new passport just in case of the need to flee the country.


The new Canadian chip passport takes 20 working days and now costs $190 for 36 pages of which the last 4 pages are unusable - they have "not to be used" or something like that written on them. So now it is a complete rip off as the passport is really 32 pages. No 48 page passport available anymore and you still cannot add pages to a Canadian passport. So parochial.


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## canuck2010 (Jan 13, 2010)

I was lucky, it just so happened I had my passport renewed about a month or so before the new design came in, so I have a 48 page passport with the old style pages.


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