State Dept.: Passport wait times have recovered from pandemic
Passport processing times have returned to pre-pandemic standards, the State Department announced Monday, with routine services taking between six and eight weeks, and expedited services two to three weeks for a $60 fee. That’s about a month faster than the estimated wait times from March.
But don’t call it a Christmas miracle. The State Department had a goal of getting back to 2020 levels by the end of this year, and processing times have been on the mend for months.
“With this update, we have fulfilled our commitment to return to benchmarks from March 2020,” a news release says. “This reflects the work of dedicated employees working for the American people.”
The State Department credits the milestone to increased staffing levels. Since December 2022, it has increased its workforce by 12% and added hundreds of additional staff in the hiring pipeline, the agency told The Washington Post. The agency also authorized more overtime hours, even getting retirees to pitch in.
The State Department also said it has invested in modernizing technology and can now send reminder notifications to passport holders to renew.
“They’ve got the process in a place to really accommodate the need,” said John Rose, chief risk and security officer of the travel agency Altour. “I’m not surprised this happened, but any time the government achieves something, I’m very pleased.”
Officials say the agency has dealt with an unprecedented demand for passports this year, with more than 24 million passport books and cards issued between October 2022 and September 2023, the federal fiscal year. That’s the highest amount in American history. Today, there are more than 160 million valid U.S. passports, representing 48% of the American population, compared to 5% in 1990.
One factor to watch, Rose said, is that a potential government shutdown in January could have an effect on passport operations. During the last shutdown threat, the State Department’s contingency plan said consular services such as issuing passports and visas would still be offered domestically and abroad as long as the department had the budget to cover those operations. But passport services could be suspended at offices located in buildings run by temporarily shuttered agencies.
The first major struggle with processing times came when offices were closed during coronavirus lockdowns. By 2021, when the world was reopening in fits and starts and Americans were itching to travel internationally, wait times for routine services ranged from 12 to 18 weeks thanks to a giant backlog of 1.5 million to 2 million passport requests caused by pandemic delays.
That backlog was processed and wait times dropped, but they rose again this year — this time due to a massive surge of interest in going abroad.
“You had a surge in demand not only from people wanting to get out and travel … but also you had a lot more people with expired passports because the past few years, people hadn’t really had any reason to go check their passport expiration date,” said Scott Keyes, the founder of the cheap-flight alert service Going.
Keyes says the fact that international flights are much less expensive today than decades ago contributes to the jump in passport holders.
“Even 20 years ago, it was easy to not see yourself as the type of person to travel overseas because flights were far more expensive,” Keyes said.
Despite the gains, the State Department still recommends travelers renew passports early.
“Consumers still should be erring on the side of caution for renewals just in case,” Rose said.