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How much you’ll pay for a new or replacement passport can vary

The price of a new or replacement passport rose in 2025, with some people having to shell out as much as £222 for the important travel document. Everyone in the UK needs a passport for international travel.

As per Gov.uk, you can apply for a British passport if you’re a British citizen, a British overseas territories citizen, a British overseas citizen, a British subject, a British national (overseas), or a British protected person. These documents are issued by HM Passport Office and currently take roughly three weeks or less to arrive.

Most people will have to pay a fee to renew an existing passport or to apply for a new one, including those for children. As of April 2025, a standard adult passport, for those aged 16 and over, costs £94.50 when applying online, or £107 when applying using the paper form.

A standard child’s passport now costs £69, or £74 for a postal application. If you need the document urgently, you can expect so pay significantly more for a passport. The fee for a Premium Service (one day) application is £222 for adults, or £189 for a child’s passport.

Those applying for a UK passport from overseas will have to pay £108, or £70 for a child’s passport. If applying internationally via the paper form, the cost is £120.50 for adults and £77 to £82.50 for children, as reported by the Liverpool Echo.

While the majority of applicants will need to pay for their passports, some people can get theirs for free. If you were born on or before September 2, 1929, you can apply for a new British passport or renew your existing one without any cost.

You can also use the Post Office Check and Send service at no charge and benefit from complimentary secure delivery. However, the government has confirmed that charges must be paid if you require a passport urgently or if you wish to obtain a frequent traveller passport (one containing more pages than the standard version).

The UK government is said to be planning a significant increase in the cost of its Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), hurting travellers’ pockets once again.

Travellers heading to the UK could soon be forced to dig deeper in their pockets as the government plans to increase the cost of the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). A 25% rise is claimed to be in the offing, which would push the fee up from £16 to £20.

The ETA scheme, first rolled out back in 2023, applies only to visitors from countries that do not require a visa to enter the UK. This includes citizens from EU member states, as well as visitors from the US, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, among others.

It allows multiple trips to the UK with stays of up to six months over a two-year period, or until a traveller’s passport expires. Nevertheless, this isn’t the first price rise in recent times, and is yet another sign of people’s pockets being hit.

Just last year, the cost of an ETA jumped up by 60%, going from £10 to £16, with this higher fee enforced in April 2025. Now, a home office briefing suggests ministers want to pump up the price once again, although no official date has been confirmed, and the increase would still require parliamentary approval.

“As with all our fees, the cost of an ETA is kept under review, and we intend to increase the cost of an ETA to £20 in the future,” said a Home Office spokesperson. “We will provide more information in due course.”

The government has been a strong defender of the scheme, revealing that 19.6 million ETAs were granted over its first two years of operation, up to last September. Further changes are on the way, however, with new rules from February 25 preventing eligible visitors from boarding transport on route to the UK without an approved ETA.

Travellers passing through UK airports on connecting flights via passport control still need an ETA, unless they are going through London Heathrow or Manchester airports and do not cross the UK border.

This potential price hike has sparked concern across the travel industry, with Joss Croft, CEO of travel association UKinbound saying: “Increasing visa and ETA costs risks pulling the visitor economy in the wrong direction and stunting that growth.

“International visitors have a choice, and the UK already has some of the highest entry costs in the world. Making it even more expensive to visit undermines our competitiveness and puts valuable export income at risk.

“Inbound tourism supports jobs, high streets, pubs and hospitality businesses in communities across the UK. If the government wants growth to be felt locally, it must rethink these increases and keep the UK open, welcoming and competitive.”

It comes after other countries and regions confirmed plans to raise their own travel authorisation fees. The EU is expected to charge €20 for its upcoming ETIAS system, due to launch in late 2026, while the US ESTA fee almost doubled to $40 in September 2025.