US passports are experiencing absurdly long delays, but here are some tips to get yours back faster.
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US Passport Processing Delays
Following the pandemic, US passport offices have been inundated with travelers renewing and applying for their first passports. The office has said that it’s processing as many as half a million per week but there’s no question that the agency is not able to adhere to their stated turn times. One blogger stated that after 18 weeks of waiting for standard processing (10-13 is still the stated estimate), she opted to expedite her passport at a cost of $60 and still waited a further seven weeks for its return (expedited from scratch is estimated 7-9 weeks.)
Others have waited months without any word. The agency suggests that you check your status online, but this doesn’t provide much insight. They request applicants not call in unless within “28 days of your international travel” plans but leaves many in doubt and worrying. There shouldn’t be a six-month restriction for international travel, especially as long as the delays have been going.
And passports aren’t cheap. The passport book runs $165 for first-time applicants (a passport card can be added for $30 more with limited utility.) A child’s passport (under 16) runs $135 for first-time applicants and is only valid for five years, compared with ten years for adults. Add expediting fees ($60), paid return postage ($3-25 depending on method), and an infant passport exceeding $200 with no accountability of returning on the timeline agreed.
Tips For Getting Your Passport Back Faster
For those who want to know how to get a US passport fast, the following tips can help but none of them will necessarily return your passport when you need it. If you need urgent travel service, going to a Passport Center may be the only option (see below.) For those that need a passport fast, but not within 72 hours, these options should get passports returned quicker though not immediately.
Pay For Expediting
While it’s not a perfect solution, for those who want a chance at a quicker turn-around, paying for expediting can be a good way to move to the front of the line. Expected turnaround times are 7-9 weeks and there’s an additional cost of $60 per passport. This can be done by mail or renewal filed online.
Urgent travel is considered anything within nine weeks.
“Choose [Urgent] if you are traveling internationally within 9 weeks. Restrictions apply.
If you have not applied, your appointment at a passport agency or center must be scheduled within 14 calendar days of your international travel date. If you have already applied, your appointment must be scheduled within 5 calendar days of your international travel date.”
List An Upcoming Trip
Listing an upcoming trip you have booked will almost certainly return your passport faster. The sweet spot for me has been a combination of a trip just over three weeks out, and paying for expediting. It can be stressful, waiting to receive your passport on such a short timeline but in fairness to the US Department of State, I have yet to be let down in this situation.
Use A Confirmed, Tracked Shipping Method
I don’t like my passport to be out of my possession – ever. Whenever I have renewed by mail, I always send it by a confirmed, tracked shipping method that forces a signature to be collected when the passport arrives and is delivered. It costs a little more to do this via the United States Postal Service or Federal Express, but it’s worth it for me. The last thing I want is for my passport to take the slow route to arrive at the passport agency or center, and then (worse) to take its time to be sent back to me once it’s ready.
“Mailing times are not included in processing times. Processing times only include the time your application is at one of our passport agencies or centers. The total time to get your passport includes both processing and mailing times. It may take up to 2 weeks for applications to arrive by mail at a passport agency or center, and up to 2 weeks for you to receive a completed passport in the mail after we print it. ” – State Department
These extra two weeks of mailing is why the agency suggests expediting if your travel is around 13 weeks (three months) away. Include a same-day/overnight return shipping envelope to reduce your wait by as much as (4) weeks.
Get A Second Passport
For those who have to send off their passports for foreign visas, a second passport can be issued. This is valid for just two years and has fewer pages. The office may require an approved reason to qualify for a second legal US passport but the need to send your current passport to foreign consulates for visa processing is a common purpose.
Travel To A Designated Passport Center
For those in select metropolitan areas or those willing to travel to one like Denver, New York, Philadelphia, or Los Angeles (not a complete list), a same-day passport can be issued in some cases. The approved reasons are typically related to extremely urgent travel or life-and-death emergencies (see below.)
Life Or Death Emergency
For a life or death emergency, the service is only valid if applied in person at a designated center. You will be required to demonstrate the fatal circumstances to qualify for this service.
Contact Your Representative
My brother’s girlfriend (perhaps she will be my sister-in-law soon) just had this issue arise. She hadn’t heard back on her first passport in months. Consulting the Department of State’s website she found this information:
“Reminders for Contacting Us
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Representatives are available Mondays through Fridays from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. We are closed on federal holidays.
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Our primary number is call: 1-877-487-2778.
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Se habla español.
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If you are deaf or hard of hearing, call 1-888-874-7793 for TDD/TTY teletype services.
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Contact your local U.S. embassy or consulate if you are applying outside the United States.
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Email us only if you need to cancel an appointment at a passport agency or center. Do not email us if you are requesting a status update or you have a travel emergency. Our email is NPIC@state.gov.”
Of course, “We understand some customers are facing extended wait times” was a constant refrain and she was getting nowhere. She contacted her US congressman and received an answer within 24 hours. In her case, there was an issue with the seal on her birth certificate and she had further actions to take. However, without the cajoling of a representative, she’d have no idea that she needed to replace her document and could have started that process months ago. For others, staffers for their representatives were able to jar loose passports stuck in the backlog.
To be clear, your representative is there to serve its constituency and this is one of the services offered. It’s not out of the ordinary or unexpected to enlist their help. It’s incredibly effective as I have outlined for when Global Entry applications extend to years.
A Broader Solution Is Needed
A turnaround time of 10-14 weeks is a fair wait for a busy system, one that’s seen a 40% elevated level of passport applications this year alone. However, nearly every week I am asked for comment on this situation by members of the media who have sources waiting as long as nine months. Expedited passports may return faster results, but few are meeting the 7-9 week processing and mailing times.
In a digital era, this really isn’t acceptable. It was just this year that passport renewals could be processed online but all passports should be evaluated and returned far quicker.
It’s shocking how manual the process remains considering how quickly and easily this could be executed with technology. In a way that only a governmental body could truly offer, the agency has opened passport application center pop-up acceptance facilities in large cities this summer. What’s the perfect solution to the passport processing backlog? More passports, of course.
It shouldn’t take the involvement of a US Congressman or US senator to receive normal service on a passport. However, perhaps by contacting these representatives for assistance, one will draft a bill allocating more resources and accountability for processing.
My Recipe
I follow most of the protocols in combination.
- I apply for an expedited return from the start
- I do so from an approved post office for passport applications
- I send it out overnight, tracked and requiring a signature, and include a return shipping of the same
- I also indicate my travel plans and often throw in the itinerary when my travel is quickly approaching
Conclusion
US passport delays have been long as the agency processes a record number of applications. Still, those delays have extended for months and show no signs of improvement. Communication is limited and mostly unhelpful, and despite following the prescribed timelines, US citizens should not expect the agency to do the same. Congress should release further funds to allow Americans to move freely and should demand accountability when they meet their end of the bargain.
What do you think?
Or just pay. CIBT will do 2 week processing for $499
Online renewals: Anybody know the status on reinstating the program…ie the person that will actually say “go!”…let’s call their office for help!
Online or not — and it’s said to be back later this year, not that I buy it at this point — won’t make a difference at this point. There are bottle necks that the online thing will just choke up worse and restart additional bottlenecks.
There is a cap on the number of available passport adjudicators, and the requirement for those background checks on that segment of the workforce acts as a restraint upon the government’s ability to grow that capacity.
The delays (both for passports and GE) seem maddeningly random from my experience. I applied for a passport for my son last December. No post office anywhere within a 100 mile radius had an appointment available in the 4-week window, but the Dallas County Clerk had plenty available (the week of Christmas no less). Didn’t even pay for expedited service, but I think I did put on the application that we had a trip scheduled to depart June 27th. I had his passport back less than 6 weeks later.
Similar situation with Global Entry. My son’s new application came back conditionally approved less than a week after applying. My brother waited 8 months for his RENEWAL to get conditionally approved.
No idea why I’ve been getting so lucky while others wait months or years…
My theory, from my visa experiences for relatives, is that it depends upon where you live. Certain regions have more stuff in the queue and hence, longer wait times. I moved from one region (which had a very short wait time) to another and it kicked another year onto my wait.
So… and this is theory, 100% theory but if you have relatives who live in, say, Indiana or Ohio and you apply for a passport from their address, you wait might have a significantly less wait time than, say, from DC, Los Angeles, or NYC. The caveat is that if they want to interview you from their local office, that could be a problem. 🙂 (I have some funny stories about such situations…)
I just went through my family passports and saw my 7 yo daughter’s expires in a year so I made a calendar event to remind me to renew. A general good practice for drivers’ licenses too.
I applied for an expedited passport in early May. Stated lead time was 7-9 weeks after receipt. 7 weeks after acknowledged receipt date the passport was sent which arrived a couple of days later. Now cancelled passport arrived a couple of weeks later. Like many things waiting until last minute is rarely a good idea.
Second U.S. passports are good for 4 years and do not have to have fewer pages— I requested an “extra thick” second passport and it’s the same size as my extra thick 10 year passport 🙂
We had a good experience last summer. Paid for expedited and it got back within five weeks.
I wonder if the backlog is for first-time applicants because of all the extra documents.
Two passport renewals (paper) went very similarly this year and last year. The only things included in the application were the forms, the old passport book/card, a check, and photos.
Both paid for expedited handling but not expedited shipping. The new passports arrived in 4 or 5 weeks, while the old passports arrived maybe a week later.
It’s all about priorities.
I’m sure, however, almost all Americans would agree the money is better spent in Ukraine than on fixing stuff like this.
In Northern Europe, we wouldn’t accept a 2 week wait. Just FYI.
Ever since the illustrious days of President Reagan, the USG has been on a continuing kick for user fees instead of general taxpayer coverage for a variety of services sought by US citizens. So with US passports, ever since this has meant user/application-related fees should be the source of dealing with the cost of providing the government service. In a time of high inflation and labor capacity/restrictions and with the change of passport type to the latest generation version, these delays aren’t surprising to me — what also is not surprising to me is that the country goes for bandaid approaches too little and too late even for problems that should have been more widely anticipated. But what good with the more widely anticipated aspect be when it would have meant higher fees much earlier? Either way, there is no real winning and we all end up paying the piper one way or another with regard to services and service levels.
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I contacted my congressman and he was able to get my passport shipped out the next day arriving the day of travel (I had expedited the processing already)!
A trick for us has been to apply for renewals right when we get back from a trip, so we know we won’t need them for a little bit, or, like during COVID, we went ahead and renewed early because why not — finding a time when you know you won’t be traveling — it was worth it to me to give up a little time on the old passport to know I have ten years and State will get it figured out by the next time I need it.
I be good if they brought back online renewals for passports. They had a pilot last year. I used and got my new passport back quickly and didn’t have to send my old passport.
Absolutely contact your US house or senate member if a serious delay. My first passport took a few months, so I emailed an old colleague from when I interned at a US senators office. I had my passport within 2 days.
Compared to other countries, a US passport is one of the more expensive passports but not the most expensive. Australia, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea charge more than the U.S. The US Passport Office takes in more money than expenses, at least about 20 years ago when I saw the figures.
All of us should be concerned because passports will eventually expire. I might:
1. wait for a 4-6 month period when I know I will not travel, if that is possible, or
2. pay more for special service, as mentioned in this article (cost $60 extra or maybe $80 if things are also sent by special tracking), or
3. try to get a second passport at the beginning of year 9 of my current passport then apply for a new passport about 6 months before it expires, which might allow about a year of processing time. Cost: $130
Secondary US passports nowadays default to being for 4 years of validity. The 2 year thing is history.
The fastest and most predictable way for me to get ordinary standard full duration new US passports back from application when the US passport agency offices have no appointments available is to get them done at US embassies/consulates. But the US State Department is on all sorts of crackdown kicks and has been frustrating that in places too.
My husband was a lucky renewal customer. He dropped off the passport in the middle of June at the post office the day after we returned from a month-long stay in Europe. He wanted to make sure he had enough time to get it back for a scheduled trip in October (family wedding) to Germany. He paid the expedited fee and got it back exactly 4 weeks later. He was very pleased.
I was quoted 10-13 weeks from the passport office. So I was forced to use an expiditor, and had mine back in a week and a half from itseasy.com. Required a valid international reservation and the old passport and passport card, Fedex overnighted it back to me. My office paid the fees (approximately $700).
I have read about the long delays on the blog sites so I timed my renewal by mail. I did not enter any info about an upcoming trip, I didn’t pay for expedited transportation to the Passport facility, nor did I pay for any expedited return service. Just the basic renewal by mail, no frills. I received my new passport 7 weeks and 6 days later. Received my Passport card and my old passport 8 weeks and 5 days later. I expected a much longer wait based on everything I have read. My experience..!!