The $100 offer to fast track Australian passport renewal

There will soon be a new option to fast-track passport applications, as the passport office reveals where Australians are most likely to have their travel documents stolen.

Travellers will soon have the option of paying an extra $100 to get their passport renewed within five working days, instead of the usual six weeks.

The new service, announced in the federal budget, will take effect from July 1 and is expected to generate revenue of $27.4m for the government in its first five years.

The five-day turnaround option will be in addition to the Australian Passport Office’s existing ‘priority processing,’ which promises a two-day delivery time at an additional cost of $252.

In the year to June 30, 2023, 400,000 people took advantage of the priority processing service, according to APO data.

The 12 month period was the busiest on record for the office, which issued a total of 3.1 million new, renewed and replacement passports, or about 12,000 every work day.

Around 99 per cent of passports were processed within six weeks, it was claimed.

In the current financial year, it was estimated 2.5 million passports would be processed by June 30.

It was noted more than 14 million Australians have a current passport, or more than 53 per cent of the population.

During the Covid pandemic when Australian borders were closed, over 2 million passports expired, resulting in the surge in demand in 2022-23.

To cope with the deluge, the APO doubled staff, which will now allow the office to provide the new fast-track service, guaranteeing a five-day turnaround.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokeswoman said the new service was “aimed at giving customers more choice in deciding the passport processing option that was right for them, particularly those with urgent travel needs”.

Italy topped the list of countries where Australians were most likely to have their passports stolen in the last year. Picture: iStock

In the event a “fast tracked” passport did not arrive within five working days, the owner could apply to the department for a refund of their $100.

As well as processing applications for renewed and new passports, the APO assisted more than 35,000 people who lost their travel documents or had them stolen in the past year.

Italy was the country where most Australians reported stolen passports, followed by the US, Spain, France and Greece.

APO data showed travellers were most likely to lose their passport in the US, the UK, Italy, Germany or China.

The current cost of a 10-year adult passport was $346, while a five-year passport for a child or person aged 75 years or older cost $175.

Demand for passports is unlikely to taper off anytime soon, with Bureau of Statistics data showing the number of Australians travelling abroad was now higher than pre-Covid.

In March, 934,190 people returned from a short-term trip overseas, compared with 818,410 in the same month five years ago.

New Zealand was the most popular destination in March, ahead of Indonesia, Japan and the US.

In the case of Japan, the number of Australian holiday-makers returning from the country was almost twice that of March 2019 at 62,590, compared with 34,270.

Other countries seeing significantly larger numbers of Australian visitors than pre-Covid were Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Fiji.

Those still lagging behind 2019 volumes included New Zealand, the US, China and Singapore.