Any experience renewing their UK passport from Saigon Passport Office

Not sure about the last part. I think they meant you cant travel on your old passport once its been replaced.

Every property has a house book, ask your landlord/lady for a copy of it. This will show you have been registered at a certain address.

colinoscapee wrote:

Not sure about the last part. I think they meant you cant travel on your old passport once its been replaced.

Every property has a house book, ask your landlord/lady for a copy of it. This will show you have been registered at a certain address.

Thank you very much for the info about the house book.

Re. travelling while the current passport is replaced. I did ask the staff member at Saigon office a couple of times, if "unable to travel on current passport" is from the date of my application, or from the date when it's received at the passport office based in UK.

No conclusive answer could be obtained. However, what she said chimed with what I had read on the .gov.uk website:

Travelling on your passport after submitting your application
Please note that you cannot travel on your current passport once you've applied for a new one. You will be able to keep your passport for ID purposes.

It does say "once you've applied".

That seems strange, as you haven't been issued with a new passport. Therefore, your old passport is valid. If that's what they advise, then you should do it, but it makes no sense to me unless you actually left the country and didn't return, or they cancelled your old passport upon application.

You can no longer renew your passport at any offices in the world, it has to be done online and the passports are delivered from the Liverpool Office. All details are found on their website.

Application form can be found HERE

You need an emergency passport you need to contact the nearest Embassy to you and they will print one for you. it will give up 2 trips through 5 stopovers.

SimCityAT
Expert Team

Please PM me if you need any more information.

Making your application

You must apply in person. If you're unable to, someone else can go on your behalf. You must bring photo ID with you.

Bring original supporting documents and a colour photocopy of each one. The original documents will be returned to you.

You must also bring your current passport with you when you apply, and a full colour photocopy of the entire passport (every page including blank pages).

You can't travel with it after you've applied for a new one - but you will be able to keep your existing passport for ID purposes.

You'll need to book an appointment by email. Include your first name and last name and 3 alternative dates and times. You will receive an email confirming your appointment.

UK Visa Application Centre
Resco Tower, 5th Floor
94-96 Nguyen Du St.
Ben Nghe Ward
District 1
Ho Chi Minh City
Vietnam
Email: [email protected]

UK Visa Application Centre
Gelex Tower Hanoi, 3rd Floor
52 Le Dai Hanh Street
Le Dai Hanh Ward
Hai Ba Trung District
Hanoi
Vietnam
Email: [email protected]

Brand new (although its called a 'renewal' application) passport arrived at Resco building on Monday. Very quick!

I applied on Wednesday 11 October 2017. At that appointment, the staff member goes through the checklist. Although they cannot advise on what documents you should include, they will support you with basic tasks. filling checklist etc.. For renewing, there is not much documents to be fair. My landlord couldn't get the housebook copy for the appointment (he only managed to get it the next day). I included a couple of bank documents with my address in vietnam. Don't know if these were necessary or not. But I was concerned that not including them would delay the application.

You can pay fee using credit/debit card. 48 page passport cost: 91.00 pounds, courier fee: 23.01 pounds. Once all the documents, your passport photos, fee form is all sorted. Staff member will go through the checklist. Then put everything in an envelope ready for dispatch through courier. You are given the DHL tracking ID to check the progress (delivery) of the package online. Mine was picked up same day from Saigon and it arrived in Liverpool on the morning of Friday 13 October 2017.

On 20 October When the new passport was posted from Liverpool i received an SMS. When it arrived in Saigon on 23 October, I received another SMS.
On the same day I received an email from Resco building office saying passport is available for collection anytime between 1-4pm.

I went there the next day and collected it. Staff there are friendly and courteous. The manager sits with all the staff, not in some office half way across the city. The staff and I even had a bit of a laugh and a joke how my new passport has 49 pages (not 48 as advertised).

By the way, new passport has new artwork in the pages. Won't spoil the surprise for you. You can see for yourself, when you receive yours. Also, you have to sign new passport using black ball point pen. Unlike the previous one where your signature was already there.

All in all it took 12 days. Even less if you don't count the days for courier.

highly recommend this service for anyone considering renewing their passport.

Hi HenryJo

Can you let me know what documents you ended up submitted for proof of identity.  The list on the GOV website shows the below.

Your British passport (if you are renewing)
• Non-British uncancelled passport
• National identity card or equivalent (or colour photocopy)
• Visa or residence permit (or colour photocopy)
• Tax record eg a letter from a tax authority
• Educational record eg school report
• Employment record eg official letter from your employer
• Letter sent to you from a central, regional or local government department
• Medical/health card
• Voter's card
• Immigration documents

I can submit my passport as I'm looking to renew - same situation as you, my passport is nearly full.  But as only on holiday in Vietnam and living in a guest house, I can't think of any other documents I can get from the list above?

Thanks

Really useful post, thank you. What happened to your visa stamp once you had the new passport? Did you have to go to immigration and get it transferred from the old passport to the new one? Or did you exit Vietnam just by showing both passports

Thanks,
Jax

Just to clarify one point when you apply for your new passport you are left with the old passport as an identification document as required by Vietnamese (or in my case Cambodian law) You are NOT allowed to use the old passport for travel after you have applied for the new one. If you need to travel urgently you have to apply for an Emergency travel document from the Embassy. On collecting the new passport the old passport has the corners clipped rendering it no longer valid although you may still have valid visas in it.

jaxkim wrote:

Really useful post, thank you. What happened to your visa stamp once you had the new passport? Did you have to go to immigration and get it transferred from the old passport to the new one? Or did you exit Vietnam just by showing both passports

Thanks,
Jax

Yet to do the visa run. It's in a couple of weeks. I saw some useful posts here: 

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=563172

Also, I had a look at this post:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 63#3912230

and spoke to Sunviet travel agency (talked about in the post above) last week. THey told me to go to the Airport earlier than usual to do the visa transfer. The transfer can only be done at the airport. Not at the land borders. So I decided to do visa run by air this time. Like i say, it's not until a couple of weeks. so will keep you posted on how that goes.

I was going to get visa letter from Sunviet, but he quoted me 120 USD for a 3 month single entry, and didn't seem overly friendly. So I went to CHi's Cafe instead.