I don't see it as a sign of incompetence. I would even hope it's a sign of competently managing expectations so masses of US passport applicants don't expect what they shouldn't expect at this point.

But the cat is out of the bag. Folks who are interested know. And as we saw from one of the links above, they are busy changing the regulations to increase passport fees, with the nextgen passport as a major justification.

People who care about developments on the US passport scene are but at the margins of the general public that would be applying for passports.

People care more about their money than they care about passport stuff, and they mostly don't complain about this kind of stuff until it hits their own personal pocketbook. And even with the next generation passport leading to a big price increase for passports, they will probably mostly just not care beside making a fleeting comment about ending up stuck with a higher price. If people were more financially sensible and cared about the US passport scene, they should be opponents of the next generation passport coming sooner than later.

Again 2021?

Just saw my first US diplomatic polycarbonate biodata page passport. The person involved in arranging this one said this was the first one that she had encountered to have been issued like this. So I'm now 100% certain they are in use "in the wild" this month and ahead.

Make of this what you wish, but US diplomatic polycarbonate biodata page passports are being issued to more than just US State Department employees.

Hmm. Maybe a formal announcement is imminent. If so, regular tourist issuance should begin in earnest next year. Thanks for the update.

It's not just the "redesign". It's primarily the rest of the stuff to deliver actual passports against the redesign that is way more costly and time-consuming.

If the change was limited to just diplomatic passports, then flipping the switch and never looking back would have had a different money and time-consumption profile than doing so for ordinary personal passports too. Of course if they had just limited the redesigned passports to just non-ordinary personal passports, then the redesign implementation would be running up the costs even more and more quickly without having an opportunity to get the masses of ordinary personal passport applicants to de facto subsidize the costs for the redesigned passports which are non-chargeable to the applicants.

Anyone heard anything new?

I've since come across several of the new version US diplomatic passports, so there is at least that sign of some ramped up production being in play.

Anyone heard anything about there not being a 52-page version coming with the polycarbonate biodata page version?

Department of State is planning to increase passport fees in Government FY 2022 (October 2021 to September 2022) in large part because of the next gen passport.

https://www.federalregister.gov/docu...rity-surcharge


The contract in support of this passport will largely be completed by March 18, 2022.

https://govtribe.com/award/federal-i...-saqmma17d0163

On February 17, 2006, the Department of State began to issue the current version biometric passports to diplomats and other officials. Tourist passports were issued beginning to end of 2006.

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/61538.htm

Starting August 2007, the current version biometric passport became the exclusive version issued.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100906...port_2498.html

So if I had to guess, based on what we are seeing, I would expect an announcement of the next generation passport by ****MAYBE**** late CY 2021 and perhaps begin issuance of the tourist version to the public at that time. Following the historical timeline, by late 2022 the next gen passport becomes the mainstay version that is issued to the public. Speculation, but if we follow the previous timeline for the current version of the US passport, this is what we are looking at. Based on the following (and GuWonders comments), I think this is definitely possible:

.

https://passportmatters.army.mil/#:~...9%20Mar%202021.

Sounds about right to me, with it maybe moving a bit ahead or a bit behind depending on passport application volumes in the months and year ahead.

Has anybody heard anything new on this, or have any information?

Some people are very curious if and how much the transition to this “more secure” version of the US passport had been and will be contributing to the major delays in passport application turnaround times. Only last week did State decide to announce yet another adjusted (and even slower) time frame for passport application processing.

I was wondering about that because I wasn’t seeing why they were advertising such a large delay. This is a plausible reason.

There is a big increase in demand for new/renewal passports —.and that would potentially magnify the challenges from an operational adjustment where staffing issues, process changes and supplies/technology on hand all matter.

If someome’s trips were messed up by a passport application backlog made worse by an attempt to push ahead with the new passport type, they may be anything but a happy camper in Quimper because of it,