Guidance

Specimen passports: caseworker guidance

This guidance explains what a specimen passport is and how His Majesty’s Passport Office deals with requests for specimen passports.

• From: HM Passport Office
• Published: 23 June 2023
• Last updated: 30 May 2024 — See all updates

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Specimen passports (accessible)

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Specimen passports

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Details

This guidance tells His Majesty’s Passport Office staff about specimen passports and who can get one. It also tells staff working in the Specimen Passport team how we process specimen passports used in film and theatre for entertainment purposes.

A specimen passport is a passport issued to:

• other UK government departments

• foreign governments (foreign governments request it through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office)

• entertainment production companies

Government departments use specimen passports for training or for fraud detection. Entertainment production companies use specimen passports as props during theatre or filming.

Published 23 June 2023
Last updated 30 May 2024 + show all updates

1. 30 May 2024

   Updated guidance to remove how we issue specimen passports for entertainment purposes, as we no longer provide this service.

2. 23 June 2023

   First published.