No more British passports issued in Singapore from 22 March

[expat yorkshire]

Passports

New passport arrangements for British Nationals in Singapore
From 22 March 2010 we will no longer be issuing passports at the British High Commission in Singapore. Passport production throughout Asia is being centralised into a Passport Processing Centre at our Consulate General in Hong Kong for greater efficiency and standardisation of quality control. The UK is not alone in this: most countries already do it and many issue passports only from the home country.

From that date, applicants will need to apply directly to Hong Kong by courier. More details will be available nearer the time.

We still anticipate processing passport applications within our target service standard of ten working days.

What should you do?
Even if your passport still has a little more than six months to run on it, you might want to consider applying for a new passport now whilst we are still able to produce them here. You can apply by post or in person - we are open from 0830-1230 every working day. Fees can be paid by cash, cheques or credit card.

Further to this there are a number of things you may wish to consider doing for your own convenience:

Renew your passport in good time. Many travellers in this region get caught out by the requirement to have at least six months to run.
If you are a regular traveller and your passport fills up quickly with visa stamps, consider applying for a jumbo passport with 48 pages. It costs a little more (currently $361) than the standard 32 page version (currently $299).
If you are a frequent traveller and sometimes experience difficulty because you need to travel whilst your passport is with the embassy of another country to obtain a visa, consider applying for a second passport. You simply need a letter from your employer explaining why you need one.
What will happen in cases of emergency?
If you need to travel in an emergency, eg for family illness or bereavement, we can still help in Singapore with a new document called an Emergency Travel Document. It will have restrictions but it will be accepted by third countries and is only intended to tide you over until a new passport has been produced.

Full details of the new arrangements will be available soon on this website.

The High Commission will be continuing to provide all other consular services.


We welcome your views on the services and assistance we provide. We use your feedback to identify areas that we need to improve. What you say is very important to deciding where we take action.

[Jedi]

Thats nonsense... it's the same situation for Australian passports, but the Australian High Commission deals with the shipping of passports from Melbourne to Singapore. And there's no additional charge either. My recent Australian passport renewal in Singapore was painless!

[nev]

Bloody hell that's really expensive. Mine costs $35 and is ready in three working days.

[Lichtgestalt]

Why don't they collect them in Sing and send the whole lot to HK?

[daffodil]

Same in The Philippines - from mid-Feb applications will be processed out of HK.

[Fat Bob]

Ah, you're one of those people who think that the government and their representatives aboard will actually do something for the citizens living in that country! How misguided of you!

[BoD]

Well as long as the application time remains about the same, and the courier process is made reasonably easy, then I can't see much of a problem

[Fat Bob]

And the High Comm says it's to save money, so I'm expecting the price to come down.....

[JJ]

hahah... another classic example of the British FCO at its "British citizen? Pah. What do you expect us to do about it?" best.