This is not a test or a trial or a pilot program: Americans can now renew their passports online 24/7, skipping the inconvenient mail-in paper application and check payment process.
The Biden-Harris Administration and the U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday that online passport renewal is now available full-time to all eligible Americans, following a soft launch of the program in June.
“Today, more Americans than ever are traveling abroad, and we’ve seen a huge increase in demand for passports over the last few years,” Rena Bitter, assistant secretary for consular affairs, said during a press briefing with reporters on September 18. “Our goal is, and has always been, to provide Americans a secure and efficient passport service. So we are really excited that we are now making online passport renewal available.”
The service will allow American adults age 25 or older to pay, upload a photo, and apply completely online, with no need to appear in person or to send documents through the mail. It is available to those who are seeking to renew an adult 10-year passport that has expired within the past 5 years or will expire in the coming year.
“We estimate that up to 5 million Americans a year will be able to use the service,” Bitter said, adding that in 2023, 24 million passports were issued; roughly 40 percent of them were renewals.
100 percent of people [currently receive their passport earlier than] that six- to eight-week promise.
Jason Miller, deputy director for management at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, told Afar that while renewing online will save applicants time, especially with not having to travel to a passport application acceptance facility like a post office, the State Department is still quoting a six- to eight-week processing time. However, Miller added, the State Department has been “executing on that faster, and 100 percent of people [currently receive their passport earlier than] that six- to eight-week promise.”
Although Bitter said the government is working to “get away from paper as much as we can, as quickly as possible,” they’ll still need to modernize the system before all Americans, including those under 25 and anyone living abroad, can renew online. She stressed that the ultimate goal is to make renewing passports as convenient as possible.
For now, there remain some limitations. Users need to be within the United States when they apply and must not be changing any personal information (like name or gender). Those who need an expedited or urgent passport renewal or whose passport has been lost or stolen will also not be able to apply for it online. Similarly, those who still have a few years on their passport but who have run out of passport pages for visas will not be able to renew online currently. There’s no timeline for when those options may be available online.
“We will expand this—this is not going to be the last thing that we do,” Bitter said. “We want to see how this goes, and then we’ll start looking at ways to continue to make this service available to more American citizens in the coming months and years.”
The cost for renewing a passport online will remain $130, with credit or debit cards being the only approved payment methods.
This new service comes two years after President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing U.S. citizens to renew their passports online. The State Department has rolled out beta testing twice before today’s official launch. In August 2022, a pilot program allowed more than 500,000 volunteers who met certain criteria to renew their passports online. That initial program was put on pause on March 8, 2023. On June 12, 2024, the State Department did a soft launch with a limited number of daily slots available for online passport renewal. During that trial, roughly 200,000 people participated and provided feedback, which Bitter said the State Department used to improve elements like the photo upload tool and the clarity of instructions.
The online passport renewal service isn’t the only way the State Department is trying to make passport services more convenient. In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced plans to open six new passport agencies in the coming years. Those passport offices will be in Salt Lake City, Utah; Kansas City, Missouri; Orlando, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; San Antonio, Texas; and Cincinnati, Ohio.
