Passport renewal

We just went through this last week when my husband decided to put his CDC card with his passport and discovered it had expired! We had already bought ticket to Italy so I had a heart attack.

If you are renewing a passport you do not need an appointment in person. All can be done by mail. I do not know if there is enough time but this is what we did.

We paid $25 to overnight the application/passport

Then paid the extra $60 for rush.
Then paid extra $11 or $12 to have expedited mail back to him.

My son's girlfriend who went a few weeks ago to PO to replace lost passport and paid for expedited servicing just got hers. It took two weeks. I have no idea how the time to replace a lost passport would compare to a renewal but in any case, two weeks is fast.

My husband had 7 weeks when he discovered it so we are crossing our figures. We did buy refundable tickets but not because of this!

Don’t send it off to the passport agency by mail. It is taking over a month before they even acknowledge receiving it and start the processing. Then it can take 2 months or so after that to get the passport.

I think going in person to a local office is your best bet. Someone may get lucky and get fast processing by mail, but that doesn’t mean that you will also get lucky. Plenty of stories on another thread in this forum about the time it is currently taking.

My story. I sent application in at the end of April. They acknowledged receiving it and cashed the check the first week of June and stated it would be about 8 more weeks to process.

I wish you the best on getting this done.

I have heard people just go to the passport office and wait all day until one of the appointments are a no show and then they will take you. I would advise talking to the agent at the location to see if this is their policy. My friend did this at our local post office and got lucky and was able to get her passport renewed this way.

What can a third party passport service actually do for you, other than expediting the delivery of your paperwork to/from the govt agency? They can't actually process anything can they?

Have you tried other offices? We have driven 30 minutes away to another post-office in the past when we didn't want to wait (recently, we were able to get a next-day appointment at a closer office for my daughter who turned 18 and needs a new passport). Check all the post-offices in a radius you are comfortable driving for appointments, and then pay for expedited service. We live in a big city, but have found that P.O.'s in more suburban or rural surroundings can be much easier to get into

Post offices don’t process standard US passport renewal, e.g., if you still have your last passport and it’s less than 15 years old; see https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/have-passport/renew.html. The only step that I imagine a passport acceptance facility (post office) might do would be to date stamp the day accepted before it actually reaches its processing destination by mail.

You must renew by mail unless you have an emergency or international trip planned within 3 business days, in which case you can go to an actual passport processing agency. (These offices might allow others to take no-show slots, but I have no info on that.) If you apply for expedited renewal by mail and don’t actually receive the new passport at least 72 hours before your international departure, then you would qualify for the appointment.