One passport per person: HM Passport Office’s policy (accessible)
Published 5 June 2025
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/one-passport-per-person/one-passport-per-person-hm-passport-offices-policy-accessible
Version 1.0
This guidance tells His Majesty’s Passport Office staff about our one passport per person policy.
About: One passport per person: HM Passport Office’s policy
This guidance tells His Majesty’s Passport Office staff about our one passport per person policy. It also tells them who can and cannot hold more than one passport.
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 Guidance & quality, Operating Standards.
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 Guidance & Quality, Operating Standards.
Publication
Below is information on when this version of the guidance was published:
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version 1.0
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published for Home Office staff on 24 October 2022
Changes from last version of this guidance
This is new guidance.
HM Passport Office’s one passport per person policy
This section tells HM Passport staff about the one passport per person policy.
HM Passport Office has a policy principle of one passport per person. The policy applies to all customers (children and adults) and is intended to:
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safeguard (protect) British nationals
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reduce the risk of identity theft
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keep UK borders secure
Before we issue a passport, HM Passport Office will complete automatic and manual checks to make sure we apply this policy consistently. For example, when:
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one parent declares a child’s passport lost, and applies for a replacement passport
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a customer applies to renew a passport that is recorded as lost, stolen, or replaced
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a customer applies for a passport for the first time, but we have already issued a passport in the same details
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a customer changes their identity details (for example, their name)
This list is not exhaustive, and we may complete automatic checks in other cases.
A customer may have more than one British passport because:
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HM Passport Office issues different types of British passports, for example:
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Diplomatic and Official service passports
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variant passports to British overseas territory citizens
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the customer is entitled to hold multiple British passports because they have multiple British nationalities (for example, British citizenship and British overseas territories citizenship)
Exceptions to HM Passport Office’s one passport per person policy
HM Passport Office may issue additional passports, on an exceptional basis, to individuals who meet the criteria in the additional passports guidance. An additional passport is more than one passport of the same type and same British nationality (for example, 2 standard passports (or a combination of standard and frequent traveller passports) that show the customer’s nationality status as a British citizen).