Has anyone renewed photocard driving licence recently?

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

I exchanged mine before the COVID pandemic, but it was extremely quick, they used my passport photo on the new driving licence.

Your forum information tells me you are living in Vietnam.  As such you are not entitled to a UK driving licence.

If you're not living in Vietnam and apply online from a UK address, they are still turning renewals around in 7 days.  Paper applications are still taking an inordinate amount of time because the majority of DVLA staff are still working from home.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi and welcome to the Forum.

I exchanged mine before the COVID pandemic, but it was extremely quick, they used my passport photo on the new driving licence.

Your forum information tells me you are living in Vietnam.  As such you are not entitled to a UK driving licence.

If you're not living in Vietnam and apply online from a UK address, they are still turning renewals around in 7 days.  Paper applications are still taking an inordinate amount of time because the majority of DVLA staff are still working from home.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

I just renewed online. After application was done, a message appeared saying it should arrive in the post within 2 weeks.

Received an email from dvla immediately. That also says 'within 2 weeks'. Did you happen to see the same message and email?

Perhaps due to COVID-19, it's taking longer to process?

My application also said photo of passport will be used.

Hi again.

It's in the Press here that only 30% of Civil Servants are working from their office, the rest are working from home, so paper applications will take a longer time.  If you apply online, there is very little human interaction anymore unless something is wrong.  The e-mail is automatic on successful completion of the online transaction, the system sends it off; mine took 4 days to land in our post box, their website says that COVID has not interfered with online applications, so with a bit of luck, you should have yours next week.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

Cynic wrote:

Hi again.

It's in the Press here that only 30% of Civil Servants are working from their office, the rest are working from home, so paper applications will take a longer time.  If you apply online, there is very little human interaction anymore unless something is wrong.  The e-mail is automatic on successful completion of the online transaction, the system sends it off; mine took 4 days to land in our post box, their website says that COVID has not interfered with online applications, so with a bit of luck, you should have yours next week.

Hope this helps.

Cynic
Expat Team

I checked the progrss of application using the link included in the acknowledgement email:
www.gov.uk/track-your-driving-licence-application

Once on the site, I entered Application reference number, surname and postcode. For 'transaction status' it says 'Transaction Completed: Licence issued'. seems promising.

Thanks for sharing your experience.