The Honest Guide to Renewing Your Pakistani Passport from the UK

If your Pakistani passport has expired (or has less than a year left), you can renew it entirely online from the UK through DGIP's official portal, onlinemrp.dgip.gov.pk. No consulate visit, no posting your documents anywhere. The whole journey:

There are exactly three ways to renew a Pakistani passport while living in the UK, and the right one depends on your case and your patience, not on what anyone selling you something says.

This guide gives you everything the do-it-yourself route needs. We'd rather you succeed on your own than be misled by anyone. But be realistic about what the portal asks of you: one photo over 20 KB, one smudged fingerprint capture, one detail that doesn't match your NICOP, and the application bounces, each round costing days and sometimes a verification call from an unknown Pakistani number you'd better not miss. Most of our clients aren't people who couldn't do it themselves — they're people who'd rather have it done right the first time, by a team that knows what DGIP objects to before DGIP does, and who chase every follow-up until the passport is in your hand.

One rule that surprises people: a brand-new adult passport cannot be applied for online at all. First-time applicants must attend a consulate in person; the only first-timers the portal accepts are babies under two. Renewals, though, are fully online.

Before DGIP will even look at you, NADRA has to know who you are. Every Pakistani passport is anchored to your citizen number, the 13-digit number on your NICOP, CNIC, POC or your child's CRC (B-form). That number is printed on the passport itself and follows you for life.

The rule, per DGIP's own requirements: a valid, unexpired NADRA identity document is mandatory for every passport application: renewal, modification, lost, all of them. Expired NICOP? The passport application is blocked before it starts. You renew the NICOP first, then the passport.

If your NICOP has expired (or expires soon), deal with it now: NICOP renewal from the UK is exactly the kind of detour that turns a three-week passport into a three-month saga when it's discovered mid-application.

The portal will ask you to choose validity (5 or 10 years) and booklet size (36, 72 or 100 pages). For most people this is easy:

The online portal processes Machine Readable Passports (MRP), the standard document for overseas renewals and the one this guide covers.

These are the official overseas-application totals from DGIP's fee schedule, as of July 2026. They include the Rs.2,500 overseas service charge but exclude taxes and delivery. You pay in Pakistani rupees by Visa or Mastercard; your bank converts the charge, so sterling figures below are approximate.

Two numbers in that table do a lot of work:

Delivery is charged separately ("subject to country of delivery" per DGIP); more on that below.

Have these photographed clearly before you start. The portal is far more pleasant when you're not hunting for documents mid-application:

The whole application happens at onlinemrp.dgip.gov.pk. Set aside a quiet half hour.

This is the section official websites won't write, so we will. We process these applications every week; here is what actually happens:

That gap on the Normal track is not a worst case: it's the pattern we see across our applications. Combined with the £12 fee difference, it's why our standing advice is simple: always apply Urgent. End to end, from application to passport in hand in the UK, a smooth Urgent renewal runs about three to four weeks.

Add time for anything off the happy path: a photo rejection costs days; an expired NICOP costs weeks (renew it first); a verification phone call adds however long it takes them to reach you. So answer unknown Pakistani numbers while your application is live.

Most problems aren't rejections: DGIP's default for doubts is a verification phone call, not a refusal. But some things are hard stops. From the applications we've handled:

Once approved and printed, the passport ships from Pakistan. DGIP uses UPS for UK deliveries: you'll get a UPS confirmation email containing your tracking number, and in our experience the passport arrives 4–6 days after that email, or 7–12 days after DGIP's own confirmation overall.

Delivery is charged separately from the passport fee; DGIP's schedule lists it as "subject to country of delivery".

My passport expired years ago

Still renewable, still online, no penalty fee. The only difference: a long gap usually triggers the verification phone call described above. Have a simple, true answer ready ("I hadn't needed to travel") and answer the phone.

My name has changed (marriage, or a correction)

This is the trap that catches the most people: renewal always keeps your data exactly as it was. It cannot change a surname, a spelling, anything. The sequence that works: update your NADRA card first, then apply under the Modification category (not renewal), which syncs the passport to whatever the card now says. Applying for renewal with mismatched data just gets you stuck. Card first, always: start with the NICOP if yours doesn't yet show the change.

I'm a dual national

Completely routine: Pakistan permits dual nationality with the UK. You'll upload your British passport and a dual-nationality declaration alongside the usual documents, and the application proceeds like any other.

My passport is lost or damaged

A different application category with its own evidence rules: a UK police report, your citizen number (the full old passport number isn't required; the portal asks only for its first few and last digits), and the requirement that surprises everyone: a photo of the lost passport's data page is mandatory. Online processing is allowed for a first and second loss only; a third loss means a consulate visit. Damaged-but-present passports use the reprint categories instead, with photos of the damaged pages. Full details on the lost and damaged replacement service.

A first passport for my UK-born child

Babies under two can get their first passport online; older children must attend a consulate. Either way the child needs a NADRA identity first: a CRC (B-form) or, what most parents choose, a NICOP. The online route needs the baby's photo, one parent's fingerprints via the Pak-ID app, and both parents' NADRA cards showing updated marital status. That last one quietly derails many applications. Start with the child's NADRA registration, then the passport.

NADRA says I have two citizen numbers

Rare, but it happens: typically a data-entry error years ago created a duplicate record. Holding two citizen numbers is illegal and blocks passport processing; one must be formally surrendered at NADRA before any application will move. If this is you, resolve it before paying any passport fee.