I am considering international travel on March 27 but just realized my passport expires in August and generally the requirement is to have a passport with an expiration date farther than six months out.
The State Dept. has regional offices where you can apply in person, and I’m in the DC area so I can go into DC for an appointment. Anybody know how long the turnaround is there? They say that mail-in applications are taking 2-3 weeks for expedited service, but they don’t say how long it takes for a walk-in application.
Also, there are commercial agencies that claim 24-hour renewal. It’s pretty expensive, but I don’t know how they can offer that if the government itself can’t do it that fast.
We got a new US passport for a family member in three days in Los Angeles a few years ago. To qualify for the expedited service, we had to provide proof of upcoming travel (i.e. - an actual plane ticket, with date, not just say “we think we might be travelling soon”). There was also a fee for the expedited service.
We had to book an appointment at the regional office, and had to go in person to the regional office. We had a short interview to explain why we wanted the expedited service, and had to provide the necessary information, including a copy of the plane ticket.
Passport was ready for pick up on the third business day afterwards. Again, we had to go in person to pick it up.
For a normal vacation, you shouldn’t have any trouble. If you book an international flight online, they ask for your passport data, and any problems would show up then. Or check with your travel agant.
Depanding where you go, you can also get an emergency passport from an american consulate (in case of kidnapping, and unavoidingly overstaying your visa/passport expiration). The consulates are much nicer than the DC people in general.
Applying by mail from Canada and asking for and paying for expidited service, my wife applied last September 15, approximately and got it back about 4 weeks later. She included a photocopy of an airline reservation receipt.
My husband just did one by mail. He sent it overnight on a Friday and received the new passport a week later (Saturday). I would imagine that applying in person would be faster than that.
This seems to vary by where you are going. 2 years ago I went to Tanzania. My passport expired 2 months after the scheduled end of my trip. From the Tazanian embassy website.
I thought I saw previous posts on here, but maybe it was a travel site. Either way I’m pretty sure if you go to the local offices in DC you’ll get the new passport same day.
YMMV, but I renewed my passport about two years ago, by mail, in the regular nonexpedited way of doing things (send in the old passport, some new photos, the form, and some money), and received my new passport six days later. Maybe I sent it in during a bit of a lull in applications (it was May), but if you’re in the US, it may not take all that much time to renew.
ETA: I think I filled out the application form online, and the PDF I printed out had some kind of barcode on it, so that the information was already in the computer when the paper form arrived at the passport office.
I don’t know if you still can. One of my past lives was as a courier for one of those visa and passport services in DC. We could do same days, but it would cost you.
Mid-last year, I walked into the Detroit passport office ('cos they weren’t on the reservation system despite 6 months of having been open!), and had my passport in a week.
