State Department opens online passport renewal service to full public

The days where the only option to renew your passport was mailing the State Department a printed application and a $15 check — or worse, going in person — are coming to an end.

The Department of State announced Wednesday that its new online passport renewal system is now available to the general public, expanding on the success of a limited pilot conducted earlier this year.

“Our online passport renewal system is an important example of how the Department is modernizing government services for the benefit of Americans and delivering on” President Biden’s 2021 customer experience executive order, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “By offering this online alternative to the traditional paper application process, the Department is embracing digital transformation to offer the most efficient and convenient passport renewal experience possible,” which has resulted in passports on average being processed “in roughly one-third the time as at the same point last summer, and well under the advertised six to eight weeks processing times.” 

Using the department’s travel.state.gov website, American adults with a U.S. address looking to renew their 10-year passports that have expired in the past five years or will expire in the coming year can answer a series of questions to ensure they’re eligible to submit for renewal online. If approved, they can then submit the renewal application, a photo and the fee using the digital system any time of day instead of heading to a passport office or mailing the materials in. During this summer’s pilot, the program would open submissions to participants daily before closing the system off once it reached a cap of applicants.

“We estimate that up to 5 million Americans a year will be able to use this service,” Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter said in a press call, adding that in 2023, State processed 24 million “passport products,” about 40% of which were renewals. “We’ve been testing it … since June, actually, of this year and actually even prior to that. We’ve been getting very good customer reviews. We’ll continue to seek customer feedback as people use the service, but as of now it’s open to all Americans, and we’re really excited about that.”

While the new service commits to issuing renewed passports within six to eight weeks, Bitter said processing times “are really historically low,” and this online system adds a new option and greater convenience for renewal applicants. 

The hope, Bitter said, is that State can continue to build off of this success and expand the system to account for other passport submissions. Currently, the system does not allow for expedited or urgent travel requests.

“This is a first step in what we hope will be a much longer-term process to be able to modernize the systems that we’re using and to be able to provide a better service — to continue to provide good service to the American people,” she said. “I think we just want to get this off the ground, make sure that it’s something that the American people are able to use, that it provides a convenient service, and then we’ll see where we go from there.”