How to call HM Passport Office from abroad

The Passport Adviceline is HM Passport Office's contact for advice and complaints about British passports issued in the UK. GOV.UK lists the number in two forms: 0300 222 0000 inside the UK and +44 (0)300 222 0000 from outside it. It is the same line either way.

It is open Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm, and Saturday, Sunday and UK bank holidays, 9am to 5:30pm - it stays open on bank holidays. All of those are UK local times.

Two things it is not for. Questions about visas or immigration go to UK Visas and Immigration, not HMPO. And applying for or renewing a passport while you are outside the UK is a separate service on GOV.UK with its own guidance.

If you are waiting for a new passport, you can get an update by tracking your application online with your application reference number, and check how long passport applications usually take. That answers the question most people ring with.

The line's recorded messages add that a passport applied for from within the UK is usually issued within three weeks of HMPO receiving your documents, and that supporting documents are posted back separately within two weeks of the new passport.

For general advice, HMPO offers web chat with an adviser and an online enquiry form, which gets a reply within 72 hours. Complaints go through the same online form, with a reply within 15 days, or by post to HM Passport Office, PO Box 767, Southport, PR8 9PW.

From another country, the form and web chat have one advantage the phone does not: they do not care what time it is where you are.

HMPO asks you to call the Adviceline if you need to travel urgently for one of three reasons: you need medical treatment, a friend or family member is seriously ill or has died, or you are working for or representing the government.

If the standard service will take too long, there are paid Fast Track and Online Premium services. But if you have already applied and are waiting, do not apply again through them: HMPO says you will not get your passport sooner and will not get a refund.

GOV.UK writes the international form as +44 (0)300 222 0000. The zero in brackets is the one you leave out when dialling from outside the UK; everything else stays.

GOV.UK lists 030 numbers at up to 10p a minute from UK landlines and 3p to 40p from UK mobiles, but your network abroad sets its own price for reaching them. Browzerphone dials the same +44 number from a browser tab, charged per minute at the rate for the United Kingdom, with no SIM card and nothing installed.

Keep your application details open next to the call and check the per-minute rate to the United Kingdom before you dial.