I think it is down to some offices going a step back lockdown wise. The week before was due to the holiday. "Passports issued July 2-8 were lower than the previous weeks because of the July 4th federal holiday."

I was hoping to see another 250k+ processed this week.

I was hoping for this as well and find this really concerning. The number of passport centers on phase one and phase two listed on the page seems to be the same as last week (I was not able to find an archive of the page to check) and the list of passport centers on those phases looks the same as it did previously. I wonder if these listings are out of date? I appreciate your insight regarding this. I just wish that they found a way to keep passport offices completely open as this is a really essential service.

I am hoping and praying that they will get through the passports quickly. It is very frustrating as it seems that so little can be done regarding this and as though many people waiting for passports are in such a helpless position.

Naw, processors had to take some summer vacation.

David

Thank you very much for your response. This gives me a lot of hope.

Here are the latest stats anyway save interested people looking them up:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5cb20e363e.jpg

This data may indicate that they have segmented their workforce into two groups. It would be also good to know how many passports per year they've been producing to get an idea if the number awaiting issuance ever gets below 1M.

David

Here is the site that it includes data from past years. It states that last year, they processed "20,690,491 (includes 2,895,514 passport cards)." What are your thoughts regarding what this means for the current numbers?

https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...tatistics.html

This might help:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9bbc3979ab.jpg

Collated from info here: https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...tatistics.html

Yep! They clipped off the top-left corner.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7269220020.jpg

Thanks - the jumps of two years of ~3M passport issued from FY2015 to FY2017 are impressive.

Assuming there's no similar jump in 2020, State's processing of passports and passport cards on a "regular" recent year of issuing 21M would need to be ~1.75M per average month or 404K per average week (12 months/year or 52 weeks/year).

While they're behind, much of the "progress" for folks who submitted earlier this year will be driven by State maintaining first-in-first-out processing without having to deal with expedited passports jamming up the workflow.

Might be interesting as well if folks who've submitted recently are seeing any progress in their applications/renewals vs. the multi-month waits that occurred for submittals reported here for mid-March submissions.

David

My personal concern is how they treat applications from out of state. Our applications were made in Texas, but because of the fact that Dallas isn't even in Phase 1 yet they have been shipped to Charleston SC for processing. Just hope that doesn't put us at the back of the queue (17 1/2 weeks now and counting).

I'm among the 143K who submitted last week, so we'll see. I had figured I wouldn't see anything before the end of the year, but if these numbers continue (~200K/week with ~1.3M backlog), I might have something back within two months or so.

My passport expires in October - I guess I will wait until then to try to do an expedited renewal.

This thread has been super helpful to me so thought I'd add my data point:

March 30: Submitted new minor passport application in person at USPS.
July 21: Email update - in process
July 22: Passport approved and shipped.
July 25: Passport arrived.

Throughout May - July I did not get any updates and the status checker said "in process"

Have you seen something to make you think they'll start expediting them later this year?

Mine also expires in Oct but I have international travel planned through the first week of the month...hoping nothing delays...

Where did you apply from?

I applied by mail on 03/27/20 from San Francisco, check cleared on 03/30th. statut in process since 04/27.....Still waiting. Sal.

They cash everyone’s check immediately regardless.

Update ...

Submitted at my local Post Office in mid-March (I think the 13th)
Received an email on June 5th that says:Application Status: In Process
Online status has been showing “In Process” since then.
Today I got an email saying “Shipped” (haven’t got the “Approved” email yet) ... expected delivery in about a week.

Update: About 20 hours after the "Shipped" email, I got the "Approved" email - seems backwards, but that seems to be way it is working.

The new passport statistics for the week have come out. Last week, it says that they received 143000 passports, 206000 passports were issued, and that 1.15 million passports are still awaiting issuance.

1. I am curious about why it is still less than the 274 000 passports that were issued two weeks ago. Was that just an amazing week? I am hopeful as it is a higher amount than last week, but am still curious about this.

I think Dave nailed it. Vacation season. Doesn't matter that they have been on enforced vacation for months. Hopefully the needle will be pushed further forward next week.

What is really messing with my head at the moment is that people have been applying in July and getting their passports in 8-10 days. The government line of 'first in first out' is a total sham. If some states are struggling with processing they should be shipped elsewhere and everything should be given priority according to application date. But then I'm biased because Dallas is STILL not in Phase 1 and we have been waiting close to 19 weeks now and feel like mushrooms.

Here's the lastest collated data for what it's worth:

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c26feb7e06.jpg

If we look at the above figures in the last 5 weeks alone they have processed 1.1m passports (total of passports issued column). The number of passport applications in that same period is 655,000. That means there shouldn't be anything outstanding for March, April nor most of May as they only have around 400,000 outstanding from end of June and that figure is probably the grand total of applications for June itself if we conservatively say there were 100,000 applications per week over that period.

This post has been very helpful and I'll add my wife's timeline in hopes that it will help others also waiting.

April 20, 2020 - Documents received by the processing center in Irving, TX
April 22, 2020 - Check cashed
June 8, 2020 - Status updated to "In-Process"
July 30, 2020 - Status updated to "Approved"
July 31, 2020 - Status updated to "Shipped"

Pending delivery date is August 8, 2020.

So that was 101 days from when they received to approval.

UPDATE
I applied by mail on 03/27/20 from San Francisco, check cleared on 03/30th. statut in process since 04/27, On July 27th received an e-mail "statut in process" ? on 28th 2nd other e-mail " shipped " 07/30th 3rd email" statut approved" so 4 months door to door.

Where have you seen that people have been applying in July and receiving them within days?

Blaming State’s staff vacations for the recent weeks passport numbers misses the boat on this. There is a lot more to this situation than just staffing numbers at one location.

First in and first out for applications has never been perfect and still isn’t; and the cost to perfect things in this regard would probably be followed with hiked up user fees. And anyone following what is up with fees from DHS should be concerned about what may be done with State’s fees, unless you don’t really care about a 30-100% increase in fees from State too.

I have gotten no indication that the average July applicant for ordinary passports within the US has gotten their passport back in 8-10 days.

A new wrinkle is the recent postal service delays.

My application took 9 days to get to Texas and finally arrived today. I had naively decided not to pay for 1-2 Day Express since we are not far away and normal delivery time is 2 days.

Just to state what everyone here presumably knows, the address is a PO Box, so there is no current alternative to USPS unless one chooses to lie about a life-or-death emergency. So for now, I strongly advise using Express, at least you'll get money back if it's delayed!

Question: when they send the applications out to various regional passport offices for processing, do they use US mail? I hope not!

July 17: Applied at Guam DMV
July 31: Old Passport Sent from Honolulu
July 31: New Passport Sent from Tucson
August 3: Old Passport Received
August 4: New Passport Received
Still waiting on Passport Card.

I was informed by Guam DMV that they were already back to standard processing times on the day I applied. Quite impressed given the current backlog.

Hmm, I wonder if we could fly the boys to Guam and get their renewals done sooner than applying locally...?

I found them in chat on a video post on the passport situation on YouTube. Plenty of people not getting them too. Now week 20 here.

Quote: I filed mine June 3rd, they received it June 7th, and I received my passport July 20th. So it took almost 7 weeks total for me!

Quote: My boyfriend & his mom sent their in beginning of June/end of May & they got theirs back two weeks ago. They are NOT doing first in first out

Quote: I applied for a new passport in Atlanta May 1st, and I received mine July 9th

Quote: I applied June 9th, and I just got mine in the mail today on July 30th. I live in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Quote: I put in application on 7/11/20 and I just got my passport today (7/18/20) I don’t know why it was so fast!?!?

On the "Passport operations in response to COVID-19" page, where the table of stats is posted, there is a new footnote:

Well, OK, so what? What it does not say is how many passports were processed each summer week in past years. Same backlog but slower processing means longer wait.

Currently they are processing about 200,000 per week. How can one look up how many were processed per week in Aug 2019?

(I did look at the annual stats, and for fiscal 2019 divided by 52 weeks it comes out to about 350,000 per week, i.e. almost twice the speed as this year. So passport issuance should take approximately twice as long this year as last year.)

At no point did I sat that the "average July applicant for ordinary passports within the US has gotten their passport back in 8-10 days". Just that people (not all people) who had applied in July have had their passports back.

Just like I know that people have had their passports back from Charleston already who had applied in April whilst our applications which date back to 20th March have yet to be processed by that very same office.

The next week (July 30-Aug. 5) numbers are 139.000 / 1.06 million / 213,000

It is interesting that output minus input (passports issued minus applications received) should equal the week-to-week drop in the backlog (Passports Awaiting Issuance) but it never does. The drop in backlog is significantly larger in most weeks. Maybe many applications are rejected...

Yes, applications can be rejected for many reasons....incomplete paperwork (i.e. forgot to sign at the bottom), missing citizenship documents, etc. I imagine those applications go to the back of the line while a letter is mailed to the person asking him/her to address the problem. So...moral of the story--have all of your ducks in a row when applying! Double check and triple check!

Actually I was wrong. In the table below I have added two columns, which should in principle be the same. They are almost the same in one case, column 5 is greater than column 6 in one case (can't explain that as due to rejected applications), and column 6 is greater than column 5 in three cases.

Strange.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d30eddc4ac.png

2 new applications for children mailed in on 3/15, just got an email that both were approved 8/6.

Update
 

UPDATE:
Today received an email staying my passport and passport cards are being printed and should be received around 8/15 !! Looks like it should be coming via Little Rock based on tracking.

When I applied I did have a trip planned for the beginning of September for France which was mentioned on my application. Probably it will still need to be canceled.

2 June 2020: Check Cashed

26 May 2020: Applications mailed to Irving

Two applications mailed on 5/11/2020 (adult and child) listing travel plans at the end of June.
Both had checks cashed same week and both went to "In Processing" status. No emails received, but the child passport status changed to Approved a few days ago and was received today (from Seattle center, apparently).
The adult passport remains in "In processing" status.

That conclusion can't be made from these data - the more relevant figure is number of applications waiting to be processed divided by the rate of issuance. If they issue 350K/week but have 3 times the number of applications and backlog, things would be faster now.

UPDATE: Received my passport yesterday. I applied for renewal at the end of May. Just under 11 weeks door to door from when I mailed to when I received back.

10 August: Passport Received at home.
2 June 2020: Check Cashed
26 May 2020: Application for renewal mailed to Irving

Received my passport yesterday.