Passports

[focusondisney]

Yes you can. Been renewing the same passport since the ‘70s. It’s my main form of ID and I love that it’s now good for a longer period of time.

Yes, I found out when I renewed in September.

 

[bcla]

Just as a hypertechnical detail, one can renew any passport, expired or not, at any time. But to get a mail-in renewal (which doesn’t require an in person visit nor the “passport acceptance fee”) requires that the renewed passport be a 10 year adult passport issued less than 15 years ago, or it’s an emergency passport being renewed before two years (they’ve valid for a year).

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/have-passport/limited-validity.html

 

[Lord Manhammer]

Yes you can. Been renewing the same passport since the ‘70s. It’s my main form of ID and I love that it’s now good for a longer period of time.

It's my main ID as well. People look at me funny when I pull it out, but then when I ask them "what's more official than a Passport?" they can't answer.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

It’s been back to normal for months.

Not for months. That's great for you, but the state department just announced recently that they were back to pre-pandemic levels of processing times. Here's the brief. I'm glad it worked out for you.

https://www.state.gov/return-to-pre-pandemic-passport-processing-times/

 

[Skippy918]

Yes, I found out when I renewed in September.

It’s longer than 10 years now?

 

[bcla]

It's my main ID as well. People look at me funny when I pull it out, but then when I ask them "what's more official than a Passport?" they can't answer.

I prefer my passport card as ID since it fits nicely in my wallet. Passports are rather hard to deal with. I've used my passport card to enter Canada and reenter the United States by land or sea. It was immediately recognized, probably because they're pretty common with people who cross the US-Canada border often.



I've used it all over. I remember once I presented it at a bank and the teller looked at it for a while. She said she'd been trained on various IDs and knew what it was, but mine was the first one she'd ever seen outside of an image in a training guide.

 

[NYCgrrl]

@bcla The smaller ID has been around since at least the early 2010s. They were offering a discount if you bought both so I opted in but then promptly loss the c/c sized one, LOL. Guess I’m just used to the book version which is now much smaller than it used to be.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

I prefer my passport card as ID since it fits nicely in my wallet. Passports are rather hard to deal with. I've used my passport card to enter Canada and reenter the United States by land or sea. It was immediately recognized, probably because they're pretty common with people who cross the US-Canada border often.

View attachment 823339

I've used it all over. I remember once I presented it at a bank and the teller looked at it for a while. She said she'd been trained on various IDs and knew what it was, but mine was the first one she'd ever seen outside of an image in a training guide.

that makes perfect sense. I carry a shoulder bag so I just keep it in there and can whip it out when needed. A few of our local liquor stores have a "card everyone" policy so I mostly use it then other than travelling.

 

[focusondisney]

It’s longer than 10 years now?

The passport is valid for 10 years. However, you can renew via the normal mail in process as long as you’re with 15 years of when it was issued.

 

[bcla]

@bcla The smaller ID has been around since at least the early 2010s. They were offering a discount if you bought both so I opted in but then promptly loss the c/c sized one, LOL. Guess I’m just used to the book version which is now much smaller than it used to be.

I was an early adopter. My first passport card was issued in 2009. I was worried about Real ID where the California DMV wasn't guaranteeing that they'd ever have compliant IDs. I remember the federal government was putting out these commercials about crossing the border. I think previously people had no issues crossing the US-Canada border with just US driver licenses, but it was pretty lax and they wanted to clamp down on it.

I don't recall there being a discount per se. But when I got mine the fee was only $20 as a mail-in "renewal" since I had a passport book (which wasn't cancelled and was returned intact). I technically wasn't renewing my passport book, but that's what they called it. If someone applies for a passport book and card at the same time in person, it's just one "acceptance fee". By mail it was possible to just pay the passport card fee without paying an acceptance fee.

As far as I know, passports around the world have been the same size for at least 50 years. Thickness is another matter.

 

[NYCgrrl]

@bcla regarding the size of passports. Well depends on the country. Some countries had hard covered small books like France for sometime. GB had small booklets that were dark navy or black for quite a while. The first passport I ever had was about 6” x 3” and green in color. This was my mother’s in 1974 and next to it the now more familiar style used in 1992 by younger son. He also had a French passport but no longer have it and can’t recall what it looked like.

 

[bcla]

@bcla regarding the size of passports. Well depends on the country. Some countries had hard covered small books like France for sometime. GB had small booklets that were dark navy or black for quite a while. The first passport I ever had was about 6” x 3” and green in color. This was my mother’s in 1974 and next to it the now more familiar style used in 1992 by younger son. He also had a French passport but no longer have it and can’t recall what it looked like.

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I looked it up, and the current worldwide passport standard is 125mm x 85mm and was adopted as ISO/IEC 7810 some time in the 1970s. Looks like the current size blue US passport was introduced in 1976, so I’m off by a couple of years.

There are other colors still issued, but for various reasons. I guess it would have been cool to have the special “Franklin” passport that commemorated the 200th anniversary of the State Department’s consular service. It was only issued for 12 months as the common passport around 1993. I got a passport in 1991, so I had no need for a new one.

https://www.passport-collector.com/commemorative-passports-in-passport-history/

 

[tony67]

Amazing that there is still not an online process for renewal, I guess we have to keep the post office in business

Also as the PP said the passport card is a great option - only drawback it is only good for 5 years - so more renewals via mail.

I've been able to renew my EU Passport and card on-line for many years, you can even take an updated photo at home and upload it and its validated and sized/cropped correctly - turn around is also very quick - was under 2 weeks.

 

[bcla]

Amazing that there is still not an online process for renewal, I guess we have to keep the post office in business

Also as the PP said the passport card is a great option - only drawback it is only good for 5 years - so more renewals via mail.

I've been able to renew my EU Passport and card on-line for many years, you can even take an updated photo at home and upload it and its validated and sized/cropped correctly - turn around is also very quick - was under 2 weeks.

I've never used a post office for passports. I went to the San Francisco Passport Agency the first time but have renewed by mail or online ever since. My family has never used a post office, although my wife needed one on short notice and our kid did once. But our kid's first one was done at a university recreational gym. It was great since at the time they didn't require reservations and were also available on Saturdays.

There was an online process. The first one (several times in the past) was a "renewal only" for passport cards, although anyone with a passport book was eligible for said renewal as long as it was within the issuance requirements (15 years for a standard 10 year adult passport).

I got mine (passport book and card) last year through an online renewal. The State Dept went through several pilot program periods where they had a cap on the number of online applications, but now they've stopped it and claim that it will come back after they've applied everything they've learned. The tricky thing was getting the photo right, as their online cropping tool was pretty bad. I found an online passport photo editing tool that just created a single photo JPEG (and not one meant for making prints) and submitted it that way where I didn't need to do any cropping.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/have-passport/renew-online.html​

The Limited Release is Currently Paused​

On March 8, 2023, we paused our limited release of the online renewal service, so that we can introduce improvements based on customer feedback.​

​

During our limited release, over 500,000 customers volunteered to submit their applications online and test our system. We look forward to launching the enhanced application in a full, nationwide release.​

They did have some caveats to reduce the number of people trying out the pilot program. Mail-in renewals can be done almost any time with a valid passport (or passport card) as well as one within 15 years of issuance (i.e. expired up to 5 years). However, the online application was limited to those with at least one of a passport (or card) that would expire within 1 year or was expired less than 5 years.

I did it in October 2022 where my passport card had expired in 2019 and my passport book had expired in August 2020. But both were expired less than 5 years so I was OK to use the online application. There were also a few weird things about it like when I checked my status there were a lot of entries that were blank, but showed up fine when I received my passport. But it was nice because I didn't need to make a photo print (and Costco no longer does prints) as well as not needing to mail anything out nor physically submit my passport. Also - my (1st gen) passport card had some issues with durability where the layers started cracking and delaminating, and I was worried that it might be considered "damaged" where it wouldn't be eligible for mail-in renewal.

 

[RangerPooh]

Follow up:

Took my boys for new passports on 12/19. I paid for expedited processing, not shipping.
-12/28 both checks were cashed.
-1/6 one passport arrived. The other is expected to arrive tomorrow.

2.5 weeks with expedited processing!

 

[SueInBoston]

I just renewed my passport and card, they both are good for 10 years

 

[bcla]

The thing about "mail-in renewals" is really bizarre sometimes - especially the confusion over why a passport card was eligible as a "mail-in renewal" as long as one had a passport book that was eligible for mail-in renewal.

It got really confusing because the procedure was to submit the passport book in the "renewal" but that passport wasn't being renewed per se. I got my passport book back and in usable condition, but unless there was a selection to get a new passport book or it was expired, it wasn't supposed to be physically cancelled (hole punched and a cancellation stamp). I read of a few instances where it was mistakenly cancelled although I'm not sure how that was resolved.

The weirdest thing I've heard of was someone who didn't have a birth certificate or a social security number and where her family was more or less living off the grid. She couldn't get a court to issue a late birth certificate since the documentary evidence of her birth was poor (just an entry in a family bible) and the SSA didn't accept her family's claims (maybe the parents had died too). But she took it to court and a federal judge ordered that the State Dept issue her a passport card with her family's claimed DOB and place of birth, which she could then submit to the SSA to get a social security number.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I’ve never renewed via the post office. Once upon a time getting a passport was a civilizing experience.
Living here, you went to the passport office in Rockefeller Center and if you already had your plane ticket handed in your docs in the morning and received your passport in the afternoon. No extra charge. You shopped in nearby travel stores and bought exotic travel sized toiletries that weren’t yet in every CVC/Duane Reade/Walgreens across the country.
When politics reared its ugly head in the form of “freedom fries” and France retaliated by requiring Americans get a visa it just became a new adventure and you could begin practicing another language on your home turf.

All this began to change when the Rockefeller office closed and moved to new digs in the far end of Greenwich Village where ultimately you needed an appointment to enter.

Getting a passport used to be the start of a life and mind changing excursion. Now it’s just paper that began life in the post office where you’ll also see people dressed in sweats just like you’ll see on the plane - if you’re lucky cuz somehow somebody will think that a plane is the proper place to show off their pjs. Oh well I’m getting cynical again.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

if you’re lucky cuz somehow somebody will think that a plane is the proper place to show off their pjs. Oh well I’m getting cynical again.

Not at all, but I hate the way people dress when travelling. But that’s the subject of another thread.