The agonies and patience involved in booking a passport renewal appointment have been passed down in traveler lore. And maybe you don't have the patience to do the mail-in renewal (plus, if you have minor children getting a fresh passport or renewing an existing one, parents have to show up in person). But here’s great news from the state department: eligible U.S. residents can now renew their passports online. Exhale in relief and grab your phone.
One rule of eligibility is that the passport can’t have expired more than five years ago, or be about to expire within one year. Also, if you only have a passport card, you can’t apply to renew and receive a passport book (which you need for all travel other than to North American destinations).
Of course, there are plenty of other detailed rules to follow because bureaucracy gotta bureaucracy. For instance, you may not be able to start your application on the day you want. The system opens daily for a limited span of time in the middle of the day and closes down as soon as the agency reaches its limit for that day. You can keep trying each day until you get through… or you can renew by mail.
Don’t forget that with the online process, you’ll need someone else to take a digital photo of you to upload. No selfies are allowed, and you’re not permitted to scan an existing photo; it must be an original digital image of high resolution. While you wait for your new passport to arrive, hold onto the old one but don’t use it for travel since it will be canceled.
It’s important to plan ahead. If your international trip is in less than eight weeks, you can’t use the online renewal process. If your trip is within 3-8 weeks, renew by mail with expedited service. And if you had a “whoops” moment and your trip is coming up in less than three weeks, you’ll have to make an appointment to go in person to a passport agency or center.
This online beta program is still being monitored, and each day the passport agency is going to limit the number of applications it accepts so that it can assess performance in real-time. This will help with the software development process. After enough testing and finetuning occur, the online passport renewal system is expected to fully launch in the future.