If your passport’s expiration date is approaching in the coming year, there’s good news. For the first time, passport processing times are back to pre-pandemic levels, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday.
Processing times for new passports and passport renewals are now estimated at six to eight weeks for routine maintenance. For expedited service, which costs an additional $60, wait times are estimated at two to three weeks.
The announcement comes as welcome news for travelers as longer wait times have been the norm in the nearly four years since the pandemic began.
“With this update, we have fulfilled our commitment to return to benchmarks from March 2020,” the State Department said in a statement on Tuesday.
A tumultuous four years
Passport processing times first spiked in early 2020 as workers stayed home at the start of the pandemic, leading to months-long delays in many cases.
For example, I sent my expiring passport in for renewal in February 2020, just days before COVID-19 began significantly impacting our daily lives. I didn’t get a new passport until July 2020 – about five months later.
Then, after the initial backlog created by the pandemic, two key factors came into play: First, as travel began to pick up again, many Americans realized that their passports had expired while international travel was largely suspended—which led to an influx of applications.
Then there’s the fact that domestic and international travel has increased dramatically in recent years, increasing the demand for new passports, something that the State Department has found difficult to process efficiently.
As recently as this autumn, average waiting times were estimated at eight to eleven weeks or more.
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The State Department processed a record 22 million passports and passport books in fiscal year 2022 and surpassed that by 24 million in fiscal year 2023 as part of a wave of “unprecedented” demand.
That demand for international travel – in the wake of pandemic backlogs – has similarly contributed to the long wait times for Global Entry applicants to get an interview for the expedited passport control program; it continues to set new membership records. (However, wait times for Global Entry interviews remain an average of four to six months, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.)
Growing interest in international travel
The tens of millions of passports processed in recent years also appeal to the growing number of Americans interested in traveling abroad, administration officials said.
In 1990, only 5% of Americans had passports, according to the State Department. Today it is 48%. The 160 million active U.S. passports in circulation are double the number in 2007, just sixteen years ago.
Now, however, travelers can expect renewal times similar to those of 2019 and earlier.
In short
If you are considering renewing your passport, you should take action at least six months before your current passport expires. However, now that wait times have become more normalized, some travelers may feel more comfortable opting for routine service rather than paying $60 for expedited processing.
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