Guidance

Authorisation and consent: delivery and collection (accessible)

Updated 11 November 2025

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/authorisation-and-consent-delivery-and-collection/authorisation-and-consent-delivery-and-collection-accessible

Version 2.0

This guidance tells His Majesty’s Passport Office staff what consent we need to post a customer’s new passport and supporting documents and who can collect the customer’s passport and supporting documents from a public counter.

This guidance tells His Majesty’s Passport Office staff how consent affects:

  • where we will post a customer’s new passport and supporting documents to
  • who can collect the customer’s passport and supporting documents from a public counter.

Contacts

If you have any questions about the guidance and your line manager or senior caseworker cannot help you or you think that the guidance has factual errors then email the Guidance team.

If you notice any formatting errors in this guidance (broken links, spelling mistakes and so on) or have any comments about the layout or navigability of the guidance then you can email the Guidance team.

Publication

Below is information on when this version of the guidance was published:

  • version 2.0
  • published for Home Office staff on 27 May 2025

Changes from last version of this guidance

This guidance has been updated to explain:

  • a social worker must put their office address as a child’s home address if the child is in care
  • an examiner must update the child’s home address to the social services address, if the social worker put a residential address as the child’s home address

This section tells HM Passport Office staff how consent affects where we will post a customer’s new passport and supporting documents to and who can collect the customer’s passport and supporting documents from a public counter.

You must make sure you send the customer’s new passport to the correct address. This will usually be the customer’s home address, but there will be exceptions. Delivery addresses for passports and documents gives further information.

Applications for children

You must send the child’s new passport to the person making the application, if the passport is for a child under 16 or is a young adult subject to a court order. They must give additional consent for it to be delivered elsewhere, for example, a solicitor. 

You must change the alternative address field on the system to include the name of the person making the application so you can return the documents and passport to the correct person.

Social services

The guidance notes for social services explain the social worker must put their office address as the child’s home address when they apply for a passport for a child in care.

You must update the child’s home address fields on the passport issuing system if a residential address has been given. You must make sure all written correspondence, the child’s documents and new passport are sent to the social service office (not the child’s home address) if the child is in the care of social services.

Supporting documents for children in care must not be collected from the public counter unless they are collected by the child’s social worker (as shown on the application form or official correspondence). Permission to collect supporting documents cannot be delegated to anyone else.

Applications from solicitors

You must return any documents or correspondence to the customer’s solicitor, if the solicitor sent in the application and the customer has consented to the solicitor acting on their behalf.

You must contact the solicitor and tell them we will return the customer’s documents direct to their home address, if the solicitor cannot provide signed consent from the customer confirming they are acting on their behalf.

The customer can ask to collect their new passport from a public counter.

We must have additional consent from the customer, the responsible person applying for the passport or someone with parental responsibility if the passport is collected by:

  • a third party
  • the parent or guardian of the child who did not apply for the passport

If a third party is authorised to collect a passport from the public counter, they must bring evidence of their identity with them.

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