UK passport fees: what each route costs

There is no single price for a British passport. What you pay depends on age, on whether you apply online or on paper, on how many pages you want, and on how quickly you need it. The gap between the cheapest and the fastest route is well over £130.

Published 31 July 2026. Last checked against GOV.UK on 10 September 2026.

The standard fees

These are the published fees for a standard application made from within the UK.

The same fee applies whether you are applying for a first passport, renewing, or replacing one that has been lost, stolen or damaged. There is no reduced rate for a replacement and no discount for a passport that failed early.

Applying on paper costs £13.50 more

The difference between the online and paper fee is £13.50 for an adult and £13.50 for a child, and it buys nothing in return. Both routes quote the same standard processing time.

There are reasons to use a paper form, and if one of them applies to you then the extra is simply the cost of the route that works. But if the only reason is habit, it is the easiest £13.50 to keep.

The 54 page option

The frequent traveller passport costs £14 more than the standard 34 page version at every combination of age and route. It buys extra visa pages, and nothing else: the validity is the same, and it is not processed any faster.

Whether it is worth it comes down to how quickly you fill pages. Since the EU's Entry/Exit System replaced passport stamping at Schengen borders on 10 April 2026, European trips no longer consume pages the way they used to, which removes one of the historic reasons for choosing the larger book. If your travel is mostly to countries that still stamp, or that issue visas taking a full page, the extra pages still earn their place.

The extras that are easy to miss

• Secure delivery of supporting documents, £5. This covers sending in documents such as a birth certificate by a tracked route.
• Post Office Check and Send. Available at an additional cost, charged by the Post Office rather than by HM Passport Office.
• Photographs. A booth or a photographer costs money that a compliant digital photograph taken at home does not. A rejected photograph costs time instead, which is usually the more expensive of the two.

Fees for applying from overseas are set separately and are not the same as the UK fees above. If you are applying from outside the UK, check the current schedule on the overseas passport service rather than assuming the UK figures apply.

What urgency costs

Both urgent routes are appointment based and both cost considerably more than the standard fee.

Set against £102 for a standard adult application online, the Premium service is £137.50 more and the Fast Track service is £90 more. Neither can be used for a first adult passport, and the Premium service cannot be used for a child. There is more on the eligibility rules in the article on urgent services.

Emergency travel documents

If you are abroad without a usable passport, an emergency travel document costs £125 and is not refundable. It is usually ready to collect 2 working days after you apply, and it is normally valid for a single or return journey through a maximum of 5 countries. It is not a cheap passport: it is a one-trip document for getting where you need to be. See the article on lost and stolen passports.

Keeping the cost down

• Apply online rather than on paper unless you have a specific reason not to.
• Apply in time, so the standard fee is the only fee. Urgency is the single most expensive variable here.
• Do not renew earlier than you need to, since nothing has been carried over from an old passport to a new one since 10 September 2018 and unused months are simply lost.
• Choose 54 pages only if you genuinely fill a passport, particularly now that Schengen crossings no longer add stamps.
• Get the photograph right first time, because a rejection costs weeks rather than pounds.