Up there with a floppy hat and sunglasses, a passport's an essential when you're going on holiday. Given how long they last, you can often forget when they're going to expire.
Well, hard luck if your passport's about to run out - as the cost of buying one in the UK is set to go up significantly this year. Now you've got an excuse to look even more miserable in your passport pic.
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Under current proposals, the price of an adult passport in the UK will go up from £72.50 to £85 as of 27 March this year. That's if the change is approved by Parliament.
The same price surge will apply to the price of a kid's passport, which will rise from £46 to £58.50 - a price hike of almost 30 percent. All the more reason not to take your kids then.
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The change will apply specifically to passport applications made by post, with the cost of online applications set to go up in line with inflation to a more reasonable £75.50 for adults and £49 for kids.
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The Home Office is justifying the decision by saying it wants to shift the burden of buying a passport more onto travellers and less on taxpayers. It sort of makes sense really - only your da would send so much paperwork by post in this day and age.
Apparently the price hike has nothing at all to do with the UK's planned return to blue-coloured passports once the UK leaves the European Union rather than the EU's burgundy red.
Announcing the move, the Home Office said the price rises will form part of a £100million investment in border security and infrastructure. Guess they have to fund it somehow.
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Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes said: "The passport is an invaluable document that allows millions of British people to travel around the world for business and pleasure.
"Our priority is to ensure that UK travellers have a secure, effective, and efficient service from the point of application to the time they pass through the UK border and it is only right that we should look at this whole process when setting our fees.
"These proposals will ensure that those people who don't travel abroad are not footing the bill for those who do."
You might think the price rise is a bit of a rip-off, given that the UK passport's not even the most powerful passport in the world - that title currently applies to Germany whose passport can get you into a whopping 161 countries visa-free.
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Still, the UK one's pretty good, getting you into 159 countries. Might as well make the most of those visa-free trips to Ibiza while you have the chance.
Featured Image Credit: PATopics: Passport, News, Home Office, UK