Passport processing times drop again: Here's how long you'll wait

Waiting for a passport can be stressful – but that wait just got a little shorter.

Processing times dropped on Thursday, according to the U.S. State Department. Travelers can now expect regular service to take four to six weeks, down from six to eight weeks. Estimates for expedited service – which has a $60 fee – remain the same, however, at between two and three weeks.

Those windows do not include mailing times. “It may take two weeks for your application to get to us, and two weeks for you to get your passport after we mail it,” the State Department said on its website .

Passport wait times previously dropped in December to their lowest since March 2020 , prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Wait times ballooned during the public health crisis, but the government has worked to bring those down in the years since.

The State Department said in an update last fall that it was “aggressively recruiting and hiring across our passport agencies and centers” to meet demand for international travel.

The lower processing times come after online passport renewal became available nationwide last month , following beta testing of the service. However, travelers must meet certain criteria to use it, including being 25 or older, being able to upload a digital photo and being able to pay the fee to renew with a debit or credit card online.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Passport processing times drop again: Here's how long you'll wait