Need to Renew Your Passport? Do It Now!
While I was speaking at The New York Times Travel Show, I met with government officials who asked me to pass on an important message: If you need to renew your passport, do it now! The reason is that over 48 million passports are going to expire within the next three years, so officials are expecting a flood of renewal requests through 2018.
Why are so many passports expiring at the same time? In 2007, the US passed a law that required all citizens to use a passport when traveling to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. Over 17 million passports were issued that year alone and since passports are only good for 10 years, they’re all about to expire.
If you wait until the last minute, your passport could take six weeks or longer to be renewed, and keep in mind that many countries won’t accept passports within six months of their expiration date. So don’t delay.
Note: Want to renew now? Need an international visa? We recommend Allied Passport & Visa, where JohnnyJet.com readers get $5 off.
FYI: Renewing your passport is easy since it can be done by mail but it costs $110. However, first-time passport holders (fee is $135) must apply in person at a designated post office, court or other agency. If you’re going to be traveling a lot, I suggest requesting extra pages (for free).
Related: 10 Passport Tips that Will Save You Time, Money and Headaches.
H/T to ABC NY.
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The State Department eliminated adding passport pages as of Dec. 31st 2015.
We sent our passports for renewal on Jan 27, the day the NY TImes article mentioned the expected longer turnaround times. We got them back on Feb. 12, so we definitely beat the rush.
If you are filling out the renewal application online, it defaults to 28 pages (Standard), but you can change that to 52 pages (Non-Standard), so be sure to look for that if you want the larger book.
Also, we put each of our passports and application forms in a separate business size envelope, wrote the person’s name on the outside and then put a rubber band around them and put them into one mailpak envelope from the post office, sent certified mail. Our passport numbers were issued in sequence, that is only 1 digit difference. (same thing as our last renewal). A nice convenience if you have to fill out forms for more than one of you.
Thanks for the tip!