Passports are the best-known Australian document and the most searched: our keyword data shows about 74,000 searches a month for “passport renewal australia” and 22,200 for the cost. Where that much demand meets a form that people fill in only once a decade, look-alike websites follow. This hub points to the official facts and the scam pattern, and to the recovery route when identity details have already left your hands.
Start here by situation
| Your situation | Read |
|---|---|
| I need to renew and want the official price and time | Australian passport cost and processing time |
| I searched and the site I found looks official | Passport renewal look-alike sites |
| I sent a passport scan or my details to a site | Recovering from identity theft |
| I want the legal side of fake identity documents | Are fake IDs illegal? |
| I need a birth certificate for a passport application | Order a birth certificate by state |
| I paid and cannot get the money back | I paid a scammer |
The guides, in one line each
Passport cost and processing time reproduces the Passport Office’s fee table as at 1 January 2026, its six-week timeframe and the renewal-online eligibility rules, with the date we checked.
Look-alike passport sites uses Scamwatch’s alert about fake claims of government affiliation, which lists travel documents among the services targeted, plus IDCARE’s reported 76 per cent surge in passport and visa scam activity and the National Anti-Scam Centre’s first-quarter 2026 loss figure.
Identity theft recovery explains what IDCARE does, what it costs (nothing), who else to ring, and how the victim certificate in the Criminal Code works.
Birth certificates, which support passport applications, are in the certificates hub: the certificate scams hub and the birth certificate websites guide.
What these scams want
A passport scam site does not need your money only. It asks for a scan of your old passport, a photo, your date of birth, your address and a card number. Scamwatch says of the certificate versions of the scam that sites may ask you to upload copies of identification, increasing the risk of identity theft, and the same logic applies here. A fee of a few dozen dollars is the visible cost; the identity set is the valuable part.
What we left out
We did not find an official Australian source on fake or counterfeit passports being sold, so we say nothing about forged passport booklets beyond the Criminal Code ceilings on the fake ID law page. A passport is a Commonwealth document, so Division 145 of the Criminal Code applies to false documents used with a Commonwealth official.
Why the passport is a harder target
The Passport Office does things a look-alike site cannot copy. Its online renewal verifies your previous passport through the Document Verification Service, restricts online renewal to passports issued when you were 18 or older that have not been lost, stolen or cancelled in the past 5 years, and sends everyone else to a printed form lodged in person at a post office. Those rules mean a genuine application is checked against government records at a stage a third party cannot reach. A look-alike has to do something different: collect the scan and card number and either pass the application through for a surcharge or do nothing.
Which route for you
| You are… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Renewing an adult passport that meets the online conditions | The Passport Office online renewal on passports.gov.au |
| Applying for a child passport | The Passport Office; child applications without full parental consent can take longer |
| Replacing a lost passport | The Passport Office; the replacement fee was $265 as at 1 January 2026 |
| Not sure which agency you need | australia.gov.au is the portal Scamwatch recommends for finding government services |
What genuinely costs money, so you are not alarmed by it
Not every charge is a scam. The Passport Office’s fee is real and large, $422 for an adult 10-year passport as at 1 January 2026. Priority and Fast Track services are real extras. A photo from a provider such as Australia Post or ID Station is real, and the photo code it gives you is what the online renewal asks for. Lodging at a post office is real. The test is where the money goes: to the Passport Office, Australia Post or a photo provider you chose, or to a website that appeared above them in an advert.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I renew an Australian passport?
With the Australian Passport Office, through its application portal, or at a participating post office. Its address is passports.gov.au.
How do I know a passport site is official?
The Passport Office’s own pages carry its name and a .gov.au address, and its fee table is the reference. Sites that sit above it in search ads are a different matter; type the address yourself.
Which guide should I read first?
If you are about to renew, read the cost and timing page. If you already used a site you now doubt, read the look-alike page, then the identity theft recovery page.