Do you know that you can get a second British passport?

If you are a citizen of the UK and you are over 16 years old, you travel a lot, then you have the opportunity to get second passport for business trips.

The main requirement are:

1. You are a business traveller who needs to visit countries that are in conflict or incompatibility with each other, e.g. Israel and Iran/Lebanon/Syria/Iraq etc.
2. You are a very frequent business traveller and need to get a new visa issued in an embassy, which might hold your passport for a long time, which would impede your travel otherwise.

To apply you will need to fill in the application form, which you can get from the Royal Mail post office branches and send it to HMPO. Standard application usually takes from four to six weeks. Priority service is also available and will take up to eight days.

Some practical tips:

∙ While filling the application form, you should do it as if you would apply for your first British passport. You will need to provide information about your parents, and also application should be countersigned by someone who you know for more than 2 years but not a relative. Such a person should be a professional with his job title approved by HMPO.

∙ You will need to provide a letter from your employer, explaining the reasons, why you need a second passport. It should also contain a list of planned trips and any required visas. For example, a good reason to obtain the second passports would be situation, where you have to apply for a visa to multiple countries at the same time. Such a letter should be issued on the official letterhead paper and signed by one of the senior staff. If you are self-employed, you also need to provide such a document in accordance with the above requirements.

∙ When submitting your application, you must have two passport sized photos.