Renewing Your Passport in a Foreign Country.

*Small disclaimer! I am writing this as a Canadian with what you have to do. For other countries it may differ a bit. Most of the information is relevant for everyone, but the links will be Canadian specific.*

Your Passport is about to expire…. Oh no!!!

This was something I had a really hard time with the first time I had to do it. There was A LOT of “Oh no! Where do I go? What do I do? Do I need to go back to Canada?” and looking it up was giving me so much mixed information! (Same with renewing my visa, which will be in a later post.) Also, my girlfriend kept asking me, “Hey, when are you renewing you passport? It’s almost expired!” So, hopefully this will help you get through your first( or maybe second or more) passport renewal with little to no fuss.

First thing you need to do is find an Embassy or Consulate that has passport services as not all of them do! Your government website should have a place to look up the Embassy and Consulate locations. Even more than that though it will usually also say whether they have passport services or not. Canadian one is here

Starting the process for renewing your passport.

The very first thing that I would recommend doing is either looking on your governments website or, if your governments website is a bit confusing(like they all can be), calling/E-mailing your local Embassy or Consulate. Usually they will have all the right information up to date. However, Canadian one is here.

I only had to fill out the adult simplified renewal form, which foregoes the need for a guarantor. If you do, however, need a general passport application you need to fill out everything, signed and dated, before sending the form to your guarantor to be signed or renewing your passport will turn into a complete pain. These are usually only needed if your passport is damaged or you have declared yours as lost or stolen before though. After you fill out the form, either on the computer or with pen, keep that somewhere you won’t lose it as renewing your passport without it is kind of impossible. If you need to keep your old passport for whatever reason(active visa or just plain sentiment) there should be a place to mark that on the application.

There is one more little tricky thing that your government’s site might not tell you. Those references you need and need to have known for over 2 years must be citizens of the country you are from! Due to that you will most likely not be able to have the friends you have met in your travels or your country of residence as your references.

Next up is your passport photo.

Finding a place to get your passport photo.

Doing this in the west is pretty easy. Most photo places in drug stores or shops will have the parameters required preset in a photo device for most countries due to this being more common. Out east it is a little bit harder. As each country has different requirements for how the photo needs to be finding a place to get the photo taken can be quite difficult. If this is the case the easiest thing to do is to ask your Embassy or Consulate where to go. They aren’t supposed to recommend photo places,however they will usually know one or two good places in the area that are used to doing passport photos for your country.

Make sure you get the right amount of photos! Us Canadians need 2 copies where as some countries need more because there are some places that will try to only give you one! I found DM here in Germany was the place to go with preset parameters ready and waiting for me. However, you can usually find the required photo parameters on one of the pages with the application.

*Please note that if you got your last passport 5 or 10 years ago the passport photo requirements may have changed and could possibly look weird to you as they did to me!*

Payment for renewing your passport.

I found this very frustrating. Honestly this was the most frustrating part to me. Some Embassies and Consulates will take payment when you get there. However, a lot will not anymore, but instead will make you pay online and bring in with everything else. Some places will even just make you mail it all in. Make sure to get the information on that before going or sending your stuff in. Normally any credit card or debit credit will be able to be used. The one for Canadians is linked here.

After this you’re all good to go! Just have to hand it over to the Consulate or Embassy in person or through mail.

In Conclusion:

• Contact your Embassy or Consulate for the relevant information(Truly easier than looking online)
• Find the closest Embassy or Consulate with passport services
• Fill out your renewal application(references need to be citizens of your country!)
• Get your passport photos with the right parameters and amount for your country(They may look different than the last time you got a passport. Mine did!)
• Pay online or in person
• Hand over all the required documents in person or via mail
• Wait patiently

After that you are all good to go! Now you just have to wait for it to be finished! Do you have any funny or unusual passport renewal stories? Let us know down below! Hope I helped!

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