Passport Renewals Are Taking Months—Have You Checked Yours Lately?

International travel is ramping up, but Americans whose passports expired during the pandemic are finding their trips might be in jeopardy.

Delays in a process involving the U.S. State Department and Postal Service are prompting anxious travelers to contact elected officials, scour social media for tips on how to get through to customer-service agents and, in some cases, even fly to different states to secure rare passport appointments. Some people are booking coveted in-person appointments—or pretending to—and attempting to sell them to desperate travelers for hundreds of dollars.

The time frame to receive a passport is far longer than it was pre-pandemic. Total turnaround time for a standard passport application can be 18 weeks, with 12 weeks for processing and six weeks for mailing, according to the State Department. It says an expedited application can take up to 12 weeks.

A State Department official said Wednesday that the department is increasing its staffing to address a backlog of 1.5 million to two million applications, but cautioned that turnaround times wouldn’t decrease immediately.

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