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If you're an American who's tried to renew their passport in the last couple of years... well, I hope luck was on your side. As someone who renewed my passport within that time, I didn't have too much trouble, but I also paid for expedited service and submitted my renewal many months before my intended international trip. The State Department struggled to work through a built-up backlog of passport renewals, and turnaround time was significantly delayed for a lot of people- even for some of those who paid for expedited service!
Renewing your passport is still a slow, frustrating process, and you should never leave it until the last minute if you've got international travel on your agenda. However, the State Department recently made a big decision to re-allow a service that will hopefully make applying for a passport renewal much easier- just don't expect it to fix everything.
@washingtonpost The State Department reopened its online passport renewal portal, bringing back a trial service that had not been available for more than a year. The service, available to a limited number of travelers who meet certain requirements, is part of a beta program intended to streamline the renewal process for Americans. For now the program is available only for routine renewals, not expedited services.
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According to the @washingtonpost , the State Department is reintroducing a trial service allowing for online passport renewal , an option that hasn't been available for over a year. NPR reported that the State Department previously had an online renewal portal from 2021-2023 , but it was indefinitely paused last March after numerous other shorter pauses. Looks like they just hit "play" again!
Related: People Having a 'Passport Portfolio' Is About to Be a New Travel Trend
There are a lot of limitations to the newly-activated online portal: the program is still in beta, applicants have to meet a certain level of requirements to use it, and it's only for routine renewals, not expedited service. Oh, and just to temper people's expectations, the State Department warns that the program doesn't guarantee faster renewal, either. Man, they're really not sugarcoating this.
What it should do (hopefully) is streamline the process and remove some of the difficulties of passport renewal by mail. While the processing time itself should be the same, the online portal will do away with the lag time for receiving passport renewal applications by mail. As someone who's always paranoid about important documents getting lost in the mail, that's music to my ears!
Qualifying for Online Passport Renewal
If you need to renew a passport, and you don't need expedited service, you might qualify to apply through the new online portal. However, you'll still have to meet the State Department's extensive list of qualifications in order to use it. Otherwise, you'll either have to submit your application by mail or go to a passport renewal center.
The qualifications are as follows: either the passport you're renewing is/was valid for 10 years, or you're at least 25 years old. Additionally, the passport you are renewing must either have been issued between 2009 and 2015, or over 9 years but less than 15 years from the date you plan to submit your application- still following?
You can't renew your passport online if you don't live within the United States or a US territory. Additionally, the online portal is only good for regular passports, not special issuance passports, and you can't renew online if you're changing your name, gender, date of birth, or place of birth. You also need to be at least 8 weeks out from your next international travel date prior to submitting your application, but hopefully that's just common sense for most prospective travelers. Finally, you need to have your old passport in your possession ( don't mail it in, they say), and you must be able to upload a digital passport photo and pay with a debit or credit card . If you can check all those boxes, you're in luck!
The State Department claims they are only accepting a certain (unspecified) number of online applications a day as they test their system in preparation for a full launch of an updated portal later this year. Fingers crossed that this endeavor is successful, and we get a permanent online option for passport renewal. It may not be the perfect fix for all your passport woes , but if you want to shave some of the time and difficulty off your renewal process, here's your chance!
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