Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many passport applications took longer than three weeks to process in (a) 2019, (b) 2022 and (c) the final quarter of 2019.

In 2019*, 382,390 passports issued through standard UK or international services, which was 6% of the total printed, were from applications that had taken longer than three weeks. In the final quarter of 2019, 102,647 passports issued through standard UK or international services, which was 9.7% of the total printed, had taken longer than three weeks. The published processing guidance for standard UK applications at that time was three weeks, with the exception of adults applying for their first British passport who were advised that it took six weeks.

In 2022, 2,620,038 passports issued through the standard UK or international services, or 34.5% of the total printed, had taken longer than three weeks. However, no application in 2022 was subject to a three-week processing timeframe. With approximately 5 million people having delayed their passport application due to the restrictions upon international travel caused by COVID-19, this led to unprecedented passport demand in 2022. Since April 2021 the published processing guidance for all standard UK applications has been ten weeks.

Across January and February 2023, 95.5% of standard UK passport applications were processed within three weeks.

*The data held for 2019 is in working days, and the data held for 2022 in calendar days. This includes an assumed delivery period once the passport is printed (two days in the UK, seven days overseas).