Fast Track and Premium passport services: what they cost and who can use them
Two urgent routes exist, and neither is a way of paying to skip a queue from your sofa. Both require an appointment at a passport office, both exclude certain applicants outright, and the faster one excludes more people than the slower one.
Published 24 July 2026. Last checked against GOV.UK on 10 September 2026.
The 1 day Premium service
This is the fastest published route, and the most restricted.
Cost: £239.50, or £253.50 for a 54 page frequent traveller passport.
Timing: the earliest appointment is 2 days after you apply, and the passport is ready to collect from the passport office 4 hours after the appointment.
Who can use it: it can only be used to renew an adult passport.
The name needs reading carefully. One day describes the appointment day, not the elapsed time from deciding you need a passport. Applying on a Monday means the earliest appointment is Wednesday and the passport is collectable on Wednesday afternoon, so the realistic minimum is closer to three days than one, and that is before you account for appointment availability at the office you can actually reach.
The eligibility limit is the part that catches people. It is a renewal service for adults, so a first adult passport is out and a child passport is out, whatever the circumstances.
The 1 week Fast Track service
Slower, cheaper and open to considerably more people.
Cost: £192 for an adult, or £206 for a 54 page passport. £156.50 for a child, or £170.50 for 54 pages.
Timing: the earliest appointment is the next day after you apply, and the passport is delivered by courier 1 week after the appointment.
Who can use it: renewals, changing your personal details, replacing a lost, stolen or damaged passport, and child passports. Not a first adult passport.
For a family, this is the only urgent route that covers the children, which matters when the trip is booked for everybody.
Neither covers a first adult passport
If you have never held a UK passport and you are 16 or over, neither urgent service is open to you. A first adult passport goes through the standard route, and it is also the application most likely to attract an interview, which extends it further.
That is worth knowing well before it becomes urgent. A young adult applying for their first passport in their own name has no fast option to fall back on, and the answer is to start early rather than to pay more later.
What they actually buy you
HM Passport Office quotes the standard service as usually within 3 weeks, with the processing time starting from when it receives your documents. Against that:
- Premium buys roughly two and a half weeks, for £137.50 more than the standard online fee, and requires you to travel to a passport office twice or at least once with a wait.
- Fast Track buys roughly a fortnight, for £90 more, with the passport couriered rather than collected.
Both figures assume appointments are available when you want them. Appointment supply, not the published timings, is the thing that most often makes an urgent application slower than the label suggests, and it is at its tightest in the run-up to school holidays.
Before you book an urgent appointment
- Check you are eligible. Premium is adult renewals only. Fast Track excludes first adult passports.
- Check what you actually need. If the passport fails only the Schengen 3 month rule for one specific trip, moving the trip may cost less than the service.
- Check the date the trip really needs it by, using both European rules if you are heading to the Schengen area. The checker will do that in a few seconds.
- Have the documents ready. An appointment you turn up to without the right paperwork is a wasted appointment and, at these prices, an expensive one.
- Do not book travel on the strength of an appointment. GOV.UK's advice is not to book travel until you have a valid passport, since the new passport will not carry the old number.
If you are already abroad
Neither service helps, because both require an appointment at a UK passport office. If you are outside the UK and cannot use your passport, the route is an emergency travel document, which costs £125, is usually ready to collect 2 working days after you apply, and is normally valid for one single or return journey through a maximum of 5 countries. That is covered in the article on lost and stolen passports.
The cheaper option nobody likes
Renewing before it is urgent costs £102 online and no travel to a passport office. Since 10 September 2018 no unused months carry over from an old passport, so renewing early does cost you time you have paid for, which is a real argument against renewing years ahead. It is not an argument for renewing three weeks before a flight, where the difference between the standard fee and the Premium fee is more than the value of the months you were protecting.
General information, not advice. This site is independent and is not connected to HM Passport Office or GOV.UK. Fees, timings and eligibility change, and services have been restricted at times in the past. Confirm the current position on GOV.UK before making plans around it.