Renew Your U.S. Passport Online with One America News Network
OAN Staff James Meyers
1:43 PM – Wednesday, September 18, 2024
Americans will now be able to renew their passports online, instead of the considered old-school mail-in paper application process that often caused delays, according to the State Department.
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“This is a new service which will allow Americans to pay to upload a photo and to apply completely online, with no need to appear in person or to send documents through the mail,” Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Rena Bitter said, noting that it “will be available 24/7.”
The service is available to adults who are renewing a regular 10-year passport that has expired within the past five years or expires in the coming year. Currently, the online passport renewal service is only available to Americans with a U.S. address.
Customers can access the option at travel.state.gov, and customers “will be able to walk you through a few questions to make sure that you’re eligible to use the service,” Bitter said.
“We estimate that up to 5 million Americans a year will be able to use the service,” she said, adding that the agency intends to expand it.
“This is not going to be the last thing that we do. 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,” Bitter said.
Furthermore, Bitter said that the new program has been in beta testing for several months and stated “we’ve been getting very good customer reviews.”
The processing time is six to eight weeks for passport renewals, “a historic low,” Bitter said.
“We don’t expect to have a different service standard for people who apply online versus people who apply by mail. We just want to make sure that we give the American people a choice to be able to do either,” she said.
“The benefit of online passport renewal is that it’s a more convenient service,” Bitter said.
Here are the official requirements to renew your passport online, per the State Department:
- Be able to pay the renewal fee online with either a debit or credit card.
- Be U.S. citizens and residents ages 25 and older who have already had an existing passport for 10 years; the passport must still be in the applicant’s possession (and not previously reported lost or stolen. It can, however, be expired.)
- Not be changing their name, gender, date of birth or place of birth for the new passport.
- Live in a U.S. state or territory.
- Be applying for a regular tourist passport.
- Be able to upload a recent digital photo.
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