Renew US Passport before or after UK Tier 1 FLR visa is issued??

My US passport will expire May 2010.  However I have to apply for further leave to remain under Tier 1 by February 2010.  Is it best to renew my US passport before applying for FLR, or should I wait until after I receive the new visa?  I don't want to run into any problems  with the Home Office saying that my US passport is about to expire. 


If I wait until after and renew, and the new visa is in my expired US passport (after May 2010), will I have to travel with both passports, or how does that work?

Hope that's clear, I could be overthinking this a bit

Don't know if there'll be a problem with the renewal into a passport that's about to expire, but if you get the renewal and your passport subsequently expires, you can either pay to have the visa transferred (yeah, right) or just carry both passports.

I renewed my US passport 8 months before it was to expire in 2008. It doesn't have to be close to expiring in order to renew. Mort's right, if you chose not to renew until after your Tier 1 is issued you'll just have to carry both passports which is just one more thing to potentially lose whilst travelling or pay to have it transferred to your new passport which is another £165 of your hard earned cash paid to UKBA.

Your choice really, personally I'd just renew the blasted thing now.

There's another reason I'd renew beforehand:

I've always found their policy of choosing to either carry two passports or pay to have the visa transferred struck me as very sensible. Now, I don't know if this regulation comes from them, or they are bound by some outside third-agency rules, but if it comes from them, I'd always wonder if/when they were gonna change the regulation and make visa transfer a requirement.

Paranoia, you know?

Given they seem to be intent on (eventually) introducing ID cards for virtually all visas, which will eliminate this problem, I doubt that will happen.

Sounds like the easiest thing to do is renew beforehand, thanks for the advice everyone.

I'm also in the "renew now" camp.  I renewed my passport with a year of validity, then got my ILR in the new one.  Made life easier!

I'm also in the "renew now" camp.  I renewed my passport with a year of validity, then got my ILR in the new one.  Made life easier!

Me too. It was a little more work, but well worth it imho.

I wouldn't even say it was more work, really.  The reapplication stuff has to be done at some point.  I just had to make sure I had my timing correct, i.e. that I didn't accidentally send my passport away when I was planning to take the KOL.