Urgent government business or compassionate reasons: processing the application
Tells HMPO staff how to process passport applications for customers who urgently need a passport for urgent government business or compassionate reasons.
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This guidance tells His Majesty’s Passport Office staff how to process passport applications for customers who urgently need a passport for urgent government business or compassionate reasons.
Updates to this page
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Guidance updated to tell counter examiners how to deal with applications where the customer has originally applied using a paper form, met the Urgent and Compassionate (U&C) criteria and they have not provided a photo with their application.
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First published.
Update history
2026-02-11 08:33
This guidance has been updated to remove reference to the Expedited service as this is no longer available.
2025-10-27 16:52
Published version 6.0 of the urgent government business or compassionate reasons: processing the application guidance. A full list of changes can be found in the guide.
2025-07-29 15:45
Guidance updated to tell examiners they must add a mandatory case note when they are ready to issue a passport in an urgent government business or compassionate application. References to the Application Management System have been removed.
2025-05-08 16:46
Guidance updated to tell counter examiners how to deal with applications where the customer has originally applied using a paper form, met the Urgent and Compassionate (U&C) criteria and they have not provided a photo with their application.
2025-02-21 16:55
First published.