You Don't Really Need Your Passport Do You?

[Wage Slave]

A word of warning if you are unlucky enough to have a British Passport that needs renewal. All change again to improve the service save more money.

The processing centres in Hong Kong and everywhere else as far as I can see have all been closed and now the only option is to apply and pay online and then send your passport, photo and form to HMPO Liverpool. This is not cheap. EMS from here to there (trackable) costs about £10. You then have to pay for processing and their expensive (non trackable) courier back to you. Another £150 near enough.

They say a simple renewal will take at least 3 weeks and maybe more during busy times. I thought that January would not be a busy time and indeed I can't believe it is busy compared to July/August. After about 6 weeks had passed I called their tracking number - no email access for non UK residents. You finally get put through to a very busy call centre somewhere in Northern Ireland from the sound of their accents. You give all your details and they tell you they are not actually HMPO at all and have no information other than the application has been received which you knew anyway from JPO tracking and the HMPO website which of course looks as if was written as a welfare to work project and contains precious little actual information.

So they agree to generate a callback request to HMPO who promise to call you back within 72 hours. No such call back happens but just about on the stroke of 72 hours the status of your application on the aforementioned website magically changes from "being processed" to "despatched". No other details of course.

Thankfully my days of flipping around the world every few weeks for work are long behind me, The Nankai Trough remains quiet for the time being and nothing happened in my family but a lot of people are going to get screwed by this. Being without your passport for the best part of 8 weeks is a serious worry if you don't live in your home country.

And if it is like this now what's it going to be like in peak season? Come back the archaic system at the British Embassy in Tokyo - all is forgiven and I take all my unkind words back.

[Russell]

They are trying to save costs (not your costs, though).

Dutch have it slightly better, if they live near Tokyo.

It used to be possible to renew my passport at the Osaka Consulate, but they stopped that. Now I have go with the whole family from Kansai to Tokyo in person to renew the passports of the kids.

At least you do not need to go to the UK embassy in person...

[Coligny]

The whole "send your old passport first" sounds like madness...

For the french, need to go twice to the kobe consulate, they check your old passport and a recent birth cert from the city of... birth, ordered by interweb and send within a week... take your pict and finger print. Then 1-2 weeks after you go again so they clip the old passport, stamp it as expired and then give you the new one.

I guess you don't have biometric passport with the British process, which might frack you to go to the us...

[legion]

Roll on Scottish independence, then I get another passport.

[yanpa]

A word of warning if you are unlucky enough to have a British Passport that needs renewal. All change again to improve the service save more money shovel more money into the gaping maws of Crapita and co.

FTFY.

The processing centres in Hong Kong and everywhere else as far as I can see have all been closed and now the only option is to apply and pay online and then send your passport, photo and form to HMPO Liverpool.

Holy cow.

Got another 7.5 years on mine, but at this rate by the time I need to renew it I'll have to apply in person accompanied by a Person of Good Standing at the Rockall Passport Application Reception Centre and pay for it with Maundy Money bearing the Queen's fingerprints.

[yanpa]

Roll on Scottish independence, then I get another passport.

One of the few things I really regret not having done is getting German citizeship while I had the chance.

[wagyl]

Roll on Scottish independence, then I get another passport.

One of the few things I really regret not having done is getting German citizenship while I had the chance.

The only thing that made you think again:

[wuchan]

wow. I'm glad I'm 'merican and have an expensive lawer on the books. We have to mail our passports to the embassy (or local consular) through J-post with a j-post postal money order. Tracking proves they recieved it. If I can't leave two months later I call the lawyer and all fees are returned plus the lawyer fee and the passport shows up three days later. Well, that's what happened last time. It's time to renew again this year so I guess I'm going on another stupid unnecessary adventure.

[legion]

Think the kids will be travelling on their Japanese passports.

We Brits really need to get our heads round the concept we are subjects, not citizens. We float around kidding ourselves the UK is a democracy while everyone on uniform and the judiciary swear oaths of allegiance to the crown. Then we act all shocked when they treat us with far less consideration than our European cousins.

Remember when Nova went under? Qantas was flying Ozzies out, the Brit embassy offered one free international phone call. Like someone was going to trek down to the center of Tokyo to make a phone call in the age of email and skype.

[yanpa]

Roll on Scottish independence, then I get another passport.

One of the few things I really regret not having done is getting German citizenship while I had the chance.

The only thing that made you think again:

Are you implying that is somehow abnormal behaviour?

[yanpa]

Remember when Nova went under? Qantas was flying Ozzies out, the Brit embassy offered one free international phone call. Like someone was going to trek down to the center of Tokyo to make a phone call in the age of email and skype.

I should count myself lucky that I work just around the corner from the embassy then... In their defence back in 2011 they were not only handing out free anti-radiation pills but also offering free £600 one-way flights to Blighty Hong Kong.

[wuchan]

Remember when Nova went under? Qantas was flying Ozzies out, the Brit embassy offered one free international phone call. Like someone was going to trek down to the center of Tokyo to make a phone call in the age of email and skype.

I should count myself lucky that I work just around the corner from the embassy then... In their defence back in 2011 they were not only handing out free anti-radiation pills but also offering free £600 one-way flights to Blighty Hong Kong.

My government was offering a $600 trip to some random asian country but it only cost $400 to go to guam the day before the quake. After the quake we couldn't go to guam..... but all the army brats, sorry, DOD civilians got to go to five star resorts for five months on our tax money.

[J.A.F.O]

Ya know before this whole passport deal kicked off, I remember my great grandmother (lived to be over 108) telling me as a youngster that they would travel on a family bible.

Makes me wonder though. Say someone like the Amish wanted to visit the homeland in Germany. There has to be exemption exception for them to travel otherwise it would violate their civil rights in the U.S. and there international human rights under the U.N. charter.

I don't know if there is an answer but it get me curious.

[Coligny]

I don't remember for the price, or if there was a price in fact...
Seems that everything was budgetted under "humanitary evacuation" rules, often used to bug out French civilians from random african shitholes when the warlords become to cocky... (Then send the Foreign Legion for some cleanup... Once no more darky sticks to the pan everyone can come back). land a Transall or C130 in a sandstrip, unload the troups, loads the civilians and back in Paris for diner.

But Japan being a bit further than bananaland... the hiccup was to put the bridgehead and base the rotations out of Seoul airport...

[Samurai_Jerk]

wow. I'm glad I'm 'merican and have an expensive lawer on the books. We have to mail our passports to the embassy (or local consular) through J-post with a j-post postal money order. Tracking proves they recieved it. If I can't leave two months later I call the lawyer and all fees are returned plus the lawyer fee and the passport shows up three days later. Well, that's what happened last time. It's time to renew again this year so I guess I'm going on another stupid unnecessary adventure.

I renewed mine a couple of years ago and it was the same. Just post it with a money order and an envelope with return postage. It took 2 weeks to the day.

[wuchan]

wow. I'm glad I'm 'merican and have an expensive lawer on the books. We have to mail our passports to the embassy (or local consular) through J-post with a j-post postal money order. Tracking proves they recieved it. If I can't leave two months later I call the lawyer and all fees are returned plus the lawyer fee and the passport shows up three days later. Well, that's what happened last time. It's time to renew again this year so I guess I'm going on another stupid unnecessary adventure.

I renewed mine a couple of years ago and it was the same. Just post it with a money order and an envelope with return postage. It took 2 weeks to the day.

I truly hope it is more simple this time. But based on my records here and there, I don't expect any special treatment despite my friends. Afterall, technically, I shouldn't be here.

[Wibble]

A word of warning if you are unlucky enough to have a British Passport that needs renewal. All change again to improve the service save more money.

The processing centres in Hong Kong and everywhere else as far as I can see have all been closed and now the only option is to apply and pay online and then send your passport, photo and form to HMPO Liverpool. This is not cheap. EMS from here to there (trackable) costs about £10. You then have to pay for processing and their expensive (non trackable) courier back to you. Another £150 near enough.

They say a simple renewal will take at least 3 weeks and maybe more during busy times. I thought that January would not be a busy time and indeed I can't believe it is busy compared to July/August. After about 6 weeks had passed I called their tracking number - no email access for non UK residents. You finally get put through to a very busy call centre somewhere in Northern Ireland from the sound of their accents. You give all your details and they tell you they are not actually HMPO at all and have no information other than the application has been received which you knew anyway from JPO tracking and the HMPO website which of course looks as if was written as a welfare to work project and contains precious little actual information.

So they agree to generate a callback request to HMPO who promise to call you back within 72 hours. No such call back happens but just about on the stroke of 72 hours the status of your application on the aforementioned website magically changes from "being processed" to "despatched". No other details of course.

Thankfully my days of flipping around the world every few weeks for work are long behind me, The Nankai Trough remains quiet for the time being and nothing happened in my family but a lot of people are going to get screwed by this. Being without your passport for the best part of 8 weeks is a serious worry if you don't live in your home country.

And if it is like this now what's it going to be like in peak season? Come back the archaic system at the British Embassy in Tokyo - all is forgiven and I take all my unkind words back.

Ridiculous system. For future application, if you've any plans to be in the UK before renewal - a premium same day service is available for cheaper than applying from abroad. There are a few centres across the UK, but you have to make an appointment to visit in person. Funny that they don't seem to have dropped the price of foreign applications now it's handled exactly the same way as domestic applications and seems crazy that the foreign processing fee is same as for their über quick super-duper service. And don't start me on birth certificate costs...

They also don't do visas at the UK embassy now either, you have to pay a company to apply for you. I doubt they save any money as the consular services bit seems as full of staff as ever. Just what those 300+ embassy employees do all day is beyond me.

[Wage Slave]

That's exactly right. If you are in the UK in the 9 months before the thing runs out then it is cheaper and far faster to get it done there. Unjustifiable and the slowness just rubs salt. 4 weeks minimum plus delivery time for a simple renewal is completely unacceptable.

The only thing would be my fear of an immigration official here throwing a random fussy neurotic fit over the fact that the PR stamp was in a cancelled passport and/or I left the country with one passport number and am now attempting to enter with another.

Probably unfounded but ..........you know the sort of thing I mean and I can well do without it. I am not sure I trust myself to remain suitably calm and reasonable these days. Keep well away from the Gaijin Gulag with its Mongolian guards eh?

[Wibble]

That's exactly right. If you are in the UK in the 9 months before the thing runs out then it is cheaper and far faster to get it done there. Unjustifiable and the slowness just rubs salt. 4 weeks minimum plus delivery time for a simple renewal is completely unacceptable.

It was kinda understandable when they processed at the embassy or more recently in Hong Kong (though, my kid's one last year was processed in Hong Kong, but printed in UK). But now there is no reason to charge non-residents more, except that they know they can get away with it.

The only thing would be my fear of an immigration official here throwing a random fussy neurotic fit over the fact that the PR stamp was in a cancelled passport and/or I left the country with one passport number and am now attempting to enter with another.

Probably unfounded but ..........you know the sort of thing I mean and I can well do without it. I am not sure I trust myself to remain suitably calm and reasonable these days. Keep well away from the Gaijin Gulag with its Mongolian guards eh?

If you're returning on a special re-entry permit, then it should''t matter as all they care about is the info on the resident card (are they even putting new PR stickers in passports now?) not your passport seals. You don't even need to report to immigration when you change passport number anymore.

[wagyl]

If you're returning on a special re-entry permit, then it should''t matter as all they care about is the info on the resident card (are they even putting new PR stickers in passports now?)

Apparently they are not, which will explain why I am always being asked to show my card by the check-in staff on flights into Japan. It probably doesn't help that I am still on my old ARC but I suspect none of them really knows what they are looking at.

not your passport seals. You don't even need to report to immigration when you change passport number anymore.

I logged in to say "surely not!!!" but from what I can see in the Q & A it looks like this is correct. If someone has info that this is not correct, please post. I am surprised by this, although passport number is no longer recorded on the cards themselves so it makes sense in a way. You do need to show your passport when you change name, birthdate (tricky at this late stage, I know), sex or nationality.

[Wage Slave]

Hmmmm. If there is nothing at all in people's passport then I can see that causing problems. A lot of check in staff won't be able to read an ARC even if they have been trained properly to recognise them as equivalent to a passport for entry to Japan.

And, when I claimed back VAT on some shopping last year, I needed to show a passport with something in English in it to prove that I was not resident in the EU. I can't see the old ARC doing the same job. Perhaps the new one does. I hope so because it is necessary now and again to show proof of residence in English as well as in Japanese.

[yanpa]

The only thing would be my fear of an immigration official here throwing a random fussy neurotic fit over the fact that the PR stamp was in a cancelled passport and/or I left the country with one passport number and am now attempting to enter with another.

Probably unfounded but ..........you know the sort of thing I mean and I can well do without it. I am not sure I trust myself to remain suitably calm and reasonable these days. Keep well away from the Gaijin Gulag with its Mongolian guards eh?

If you're returning on a special re-entry permit, then it should''t matter as all they care about is the info on the resident card (are they even putting new PR stickers in passports now?) not your passport seals.

AFAIR under the old system it was OK to travel with a new passport as long as you took along the old one with the stickers in it, if they hadn't been transferred across already (I ended up with an very inconvenient visa renewal / passport renewal / Indian visa application timing situation a while back and checked if I could do that if I couldn't get the new-visa-stickers-in-old-passport transferred. I don't imagine there would be any problems as long as you have all the relevant bits of paper/plastic and don't show up drunk and belligerent.

[Wage Slave]

and don't show up drunk and belligerent.

I'm sure you are right but where's the fun in that?

[wagyl]

and don't show up drunk and belligerent.

I'm sure you are right but where's the fun in that?

Some people even manage to dine out on their stories for more than two years!
(The latest development appears to be that most, but not all, of the parody twitter accounts are in suspension. It will be interesting to see the results of any appeals against those decisions.)

[Grumpy Gramps]

I have the new ARC and it is bilingual, at least the captions and the status as in "Permanent Resident". The address itself, though, is in Japanese. When I got a new passport last year, immigration didn't put any stamp into it anymore.

[Wage Slave]

I have the new ARC and it is bilingual, at least the captions and the status as in "Permanent Resident". The address itself, though, is in Japanese. When I got a new passport last year, immigration didn't put any stamp into it anymore.

Aha. I see - sort of. The passport is unnecessary as far as Japan is concerned.

[wagyl]

It does kind of raise the issue of what our status is if we have a valid Zairyu card but we let our passport expire. Who wants to volunteer to be the test case?

From a practical point of view Immigration will ask to see your passport when leaving the country or when renewing your status of residence, but it is perfectly possible that status of residence extends longer than the passport.

Fun bonus philosophical question: if we were extradited for being in Japan with an expired passport, would our own country recognise us without a passport? This issue must have arisen before.

Then again there are deeper existential issues: I use my name because it is the name I have been told is mine, by people who claim to be my parents. but I have no memory of the events. How do I know for sure? Why does my government trust me and give me a birth certificate when I say I am that person?

[Mike Oxlong]

I have the new ARC and it is bilingual, at least the captions and the status as in "Permanent Resident". The address itself, though, is in Japanese. When I got a new passport last year, immigration didn't put any stamp into it anymore.

Aha. I see - sort of. The passport is unnecessary as far as Japan is concerned.

So visa holders and permanent residents are being treated more like J-passport holders in this instance, with exits/entries to Japan unstamped?

[wagyl]

I have the new ARC and it is bilingual, at least the captions and the status as in "Permanent Resident". The address itself, though, is in Japanese. When I got a new passport last year, immigration didn't put any stamp into it anymore.

Aha. I see - sort of. The passport is unnecessary as far as Japan is concerned.

So visa holders and permanent residents are being treated more like J-passport holders in this instance, with exits/entries to Japan unstamped?

No, I think this discussion is about the visa stamp, not the entry and exit stamps. They are still neatly paired together in columns down the page.

[Mike Oxlong]

I have the new ARC and it is bilingual, at least the captions and the status as in "Permanent Resident". The address itself, though, is in Japanese. When I got a new passport last year, immigration didn't put any stamp into it anymore.

Aha. I see - sort of. The passport is unnecessary as far as Japan is concerned.

So visa holders and permanent residents are being treated more like J-passport holders in this instance, with exits/entries to Japan unstamped?

No, I think this discussion is about the visa stamp, not the entry and exit stamps. They are still neatly paired together in columns down the page.

Right, got it. Thanks.

Used to be those stamps, then the stickers, now the card...