Originally Posted by
cafeconleche
Applicants abroad get rush passports for no extra charge because they're abroad and likely need them faster, but even in Frankfurt which is a huge mission, they print in the US and send immediately to Frankfurt (according to the status check, they printed and shipped the same day, though the consulate took a few days to sort and prepare). It's nice. I just wish they didn't issue only fat passports because I want a thin one.
There is indeed no expedite fee charged by the State Department for passports applied for at US missions abroad. There is no approved fee on the fee schedule for expedited service at such places. Why there isn’t such a fee applicable is — IIRC and am not confusing this with something else — in large part a legacy of arrangements for
domestic US applications. At US embassies/consulates abroad, this work patches in differently and activity-based costing means different things than it does across the domestic US. “User fees” are supposedly there to sort of track what ABC findings mean for a product or service’s cost to the “user”. Consular services personnel would (with some exceptions) mostly be at most regular embassies/consulates anyway, generally even more so for visa processing and the fee revenue that brings in than for US citizens abroad.