In thinking Passports are much more expensive than they need to be?

[ShadeofViolet]

If I am wrong then you can all educate me :)

We are going to Spain and Disneyland Paris next year so I need to organise passports. DS1 needs a new one, as do I, and DD needs her first one.

Its going to cost me £175.50

Do they really needs to be that expensive?

mmelindt- the Kinderausweis is being phased out. from 2007 only childrens passports are available and they are only valid for 6 years now.
I think there is a EU regulation that children can only travel with photo id.
what annoys me, if you have a different name to your child, you cannot anymore have the child*s name in your passport. and airlines are often clueless at checkin...

"if you have a different name to your child, you cannot anymore have the child*s name in your passport"

For UK passports, you can't have children on the passport full stop, as there's no facility to do so in an EU-model passport. I'd be surprised if, going forward, it's any different for any other EU country.

I only know for german passports regulations changed in 2007, I believe they were to make eu-passports more similar. before then it was possible.

"For UK passports, you can't have children on the passport full stop,"

Yeah, really pissed me off when that was stopped-anyone know why it was stopped?

There were several incidences, diddl, in which the parent who had the child on his/her passport died abroad suddenly, leaving the child with an almight kerfuffle to get back to the UK.

Also, due to child abduction issues, this practice was ended.

there is a "new" eu directive EC-2252/2004, which led to changes in passport law (if there is such a thing) in the european countries. sorry I can*t find a link to the text of this directive.

found it on the european commission website.
the summary is quite interesting.

I think it's all a ruse on the part of the UK tourist industry to keep us all holidaying in the rain Britain - they'll try anything. Remember last year's washed out barbecue summer?!

The rotters

mousymouse
Ah. Must check our DC's Kinderausweise then.

Just got my passport renewed and DS's first passport - cost 270 euros. It's a mega ripoff! We could also have applied for an Irish passport for DS which would only have been 50 euros but was warned by a friend that the Dutch can get funny if the child has a different nationality to the mother - I'm British. Our first choice would have been a Dutch passport for DS: 22 euros and half an hour at the town hall but the law changed recently so he won't qualify till he's three. Just shows how much the cost varies between countries though!

YA definitely NBU

While I can see others have even higher charges to pay, in some cases that seems to be a matter of choice not to live in the UK.

I will need a new passport just to open a bank account (as I don't have a driving licence). As has been stated, the cost has more than quadrupled over the years. I expect I will need to get other paperwork (such as a birth certificate) before starting to apply for a new passport, which will entail other costs on top.

I don't need a passport for anything else at present (I have not been able to afford any foreign travel in the past 10 years anyway), but when I told a pensions firm about my change of address they were a bit 'snotty' telling me I'd need to submit various items to prove I should receive the annual statements about my pension. I only got them to send me the statement at my current address by threatening them with disclosing personal data (breaking the Data Protection Act) if they sent the statements to my old address...

Hang on - DD has a Kinderausweis which has a photo and which we got earlier this year. It cost 12 euro, plus the photo.

They change the rules every 5 mins. When hers was done, she had to comply with the same photo restrictions as an adult (no smiling etc) but now apparently you can use a normal photo.