How To Renew Passport? – A Step-By-Step Guide

Even if you travel a lot, you might still not be aware of the renewal and expiry dates of your United States passport. At the end of the year 2022, the US Department of State started a pilot program for all, where volunteers will have the ability to renew their passports through online ways. If you want to know about how to renew passport in the US, then read on through to the end of the article.

This program for passport renewal will be available for all during the latter part of 2023. This factor is probably attributable to the fact that during the pandemic, for many months at a stretch, application renewals were suspended. Therefore, this led to a huge backlog of passport applications, which resulted in delays.

How To Renew Passport Online?

As already discussed, passport renewal times are back to normal and can also be done online from the comfort of your home. If your passport is expired, you will need to know how to renew your expired passport online. This section will be about that when and how to renew an expired passport if you are looking for a United States passport renewal application.

Eligibility For Online Passport Renewal

Before we answer your question, ?How to renew my passport online?? you will need to understand that there are various eligibility factors for online passport renewal. This holds true for your passport card or your passport book. The following are the factors that make you eligible for online passport renewal:

• You must not have any international travel plans within the next eleven weeks.
• You must have your latest US passport with you.
• Your latest US passport was valid for full ten years.
• Make sure that the passport is not damaged or might not be reported as lost or stolen previously.
• When your passport was issued, you should have been at least 16 years of age.
• Your passport was issued for more than nine years, and also it must be issued for less than fifteen years from the date when you will submit your application.
• Your latest passport should contain the same name and gender you currently have. If you have changed your name or gender, then it is not applicable.
• You must be able to upload your digital photo, which you have taken within six months.

Basically, at the time of renewal of your passport, you must keep the expiration date in mind and also keep track of the places you are traveling and dates of travel. In ideal situations, you must always consider renewing your passport at least six months before the expiration date. This can be great if you have to travel to some country that requires you to have six months of passport validity.

If you are considering renewing your passport, the best thing for you would be to avoid backlogs, possible delays, and busy travel periods and always renew ahead of time. Otherwise, you will face unnecessary delays like the ones that happened during the pandemic.

For adults, the US passport is valid for a time range of 10 years, and for minors (that is, less than 16 years old), the time validity of the passport is five years.

How And Where Can I Renew My Passport? – Steps To Follow

Hope you have met all the aforementioned requirements for eligibility. Once you have ensured that, you must consider following the steps given below to renew your passport:

Step 1: Visit the official website of the US Department of State, and check whether the pilot program for renewing a passport is open or closed. Since the program opens or closes from time to time, hence, it is essential to check it beforehand.

Step 2: If you see the program is still running and available, just log in to your account with your passport credentials. And renew your passport when you get the prompt. All you have to do is request your renewal. In this step, if you have somehow forgotten your login information, you can reset it with the help of your passport credentials only.

Step 3: Once you send your request, you will have to wait for twenty-four hours to get the request processed.

After your passport renewal request is approved, you will see a ?Renew Passport? button once you log in again to your passport account. Then you can continue your renewal application. There are various details you will need to provide on your passport application, which includes your general contact, passport details, current passport information, social security number, occupation, city, date of birth, and other essential details.

A Few Essential Factors About The Passport Renewal Process

The minimum time for passport renewal is six weeks, and the maximum time is nine weeks. Furthermore, it can take another two weeks for the process to even begin in the first place. The passport will return to you after another two weeks.

Hence the total time taken for the passport renewal process is close to thirteen weeks maximum. However, if you pay an amount of $18.12, you will get the passport delivered to your place within two days of the renewal processing.

To make your passport renewal process faster, you will need to pay $60, which will shorten the time frame to three weeks minimum time to five weeks maximum time. You can also pay an additional $18.12 to make the shipping process of the passport a bit faster.

There is more. If you have travel plans within the next 72 hours, you can make the passport renewal process faster with another $60 by showing proof of your travel plans. However, this is not available many times, as there are only a limited number of appointments available.

Summing Up

Hope this article was helpful for you in getting a better idea of how to renew passport in the United States. If you are in a hurry, you can also expedite the process by paying some extra bucks along with the renewal fees. Do you think the passport renewal pilot program is helpful? Share your reviews regarding the same in the comments section below.

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