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Renewing a passport from Australia


GKatherine

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Hi, how easy is it to renew a passport from Australia?  My passport will be expiring middle 2019.  I am going to Home Affairs in the next week or so to get the kids' passports and other documents, and was considering to renew mine now as well.  Thoughts?  Renew early or renew once we are in Australia?

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I have just renewed my wife's in Aus and it took about 4 months. The hardest part (most waiting) was getting the appointment with the SA cosul in Perth to get our application certified / signed.

I would do this in SA now. An adult passport is valid for 10 years, so you will be buying youself 7 years. In 2019 you won't have Australian citizenship yet so your SA passport will likely be your only passport.

Do it now and it may be the last time you will ever have to do it ;-)

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Thanks @RichardH, my thoughts exactly!

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I'd do it there...

 

... really

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I renewed mine in Sydney. It was a pain in the butt. I didn't have to go to the high commission in Canberra. Our issue was that very few policemen here can still do good ink fingerprints. If you ask for fingerprints, they assume you mean digitised ones. South Africa cannot accept ink fingerprints that are poorly done. 

 

Another problem was we had to go to our local police station, which is tiny. We couldn't go to any other one (stupid rules!). If they have anyone in the holding cell, they can't take you around back to do the ink fingerprints. So, we had to make several calls until we found a time when the local drunks and house breakers were not occupying the holding cell. If we lived in an area where the local police station was a bit bigger, we wouldn't have had that problem...I live 30 minutes from the Sydney Harbour bridge, but it just happens my nearest police station is tiny.

 

Oh and if you do fill in something stupid on the form, you will get a nice polite e-mail from the high commission, telling you that you are an idiot for filling in such a simple form incorrectly.

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We did a bit of homework on the best police stations to go to in Sydney (Hornsby, Dee Why,etc). The ones that do ink and do it well. Nobody mentioned it had to be your local. They do however have to post your application off themselves, so you will have to have absolutely everything done and they just put their last couple of forms in and seal your pre paid envelope. You pay them (more than the cost of the new passport) and leave them to post it off. Which felt weird, but it works. Yes, you have to ring beforehand and ask if they have someone in their holding cells, jump in your car and hope they dont bring someone in while you drive there. If you explain its for a RSA passport, they normally all know about us and your special request. No too big a drama, plus the passport is valid for 10 years. A First World annoyance at best.

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Here in Kambrah (Canberra to you who aren't in the know) - I had to make an appointment 3 weeks in advance for fingerprints, with the AFP.

 

I would much rather do it back in RSA, as I said before.

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23 hours ago, OubaasDik said:

Here in Kambrah (Canberra to you who aren't in the know) :lol::lol:

Priceless.

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Hi, thanks so much for the feedback.  Based on all the comments I went ahead and renewed my passport yesterday.  Got some funny looks at Home Affairs because I wanted to renew early, but oh well.  It is done!

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  • 1 month later...

Hi GKatherine 

Have you been granted your visas ? And if so, how have you updated your passport details to your visa grant ?

 

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Hi @189inprocess. No, we are still waiting for an ITA :( But I have a new passport and so does the kids. So we are ready, just need that elusive email....

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  • 2 months later...

Do children also have to do fingerprints for renewal of passport?

My 2 youngests' passports are expiring mid next year.

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Hi @Eyebrow, we haven't renewed yet, but I don't think so.  On their passports it says 'Too young to sign'. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Both South African passports?  Many people do.  Or are you asking Ozzie and SA.  Can also be done.  If you are a South African you HAVE to travel in and out of South Africa on your SA passport.

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1 hour ago, FromDurbs said:

Both South African passports?  Many people do.  Or are you asking Ozzie and SA.  Can also be done.  If you are a South African you HAVE to travel in and out of South Africa on your SA passport.

Yes, we wanted to get mine in my married name but but plane tickets are in my maiden name so wanted find out do they actually cancel the other or are both still valid 

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People in SA who travel a lot have two passports, then they travel on the one while the other is at some consulate waiting for a visa.  I currently have two, the one had only 2 blank pages left, so I got a new one in case they were funny about it being full.  I often travel on the old one when I don't need a visa.  The funny thing is, now that the passport is almost full they always find a way to fit the stamp in between the other stamps.  When I had lots of pages, they would always stamp on an empty page.

 

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