Hi all, thanks in advance for any insight you can offer. I'll start with what I think is the most important question for our situation, and then I'll provide a summary of our situation.

Question: Does the urgent travel passport request (the one where you have international travel in 14 days and you're lucky enough to get an appt) provide you with a standard, full validity passport? I see that many countries (including Indonesia) do not accept an "emergency passport" but that's not what you'd receive if you successfully apply for an urgent travel passport, correct?

Situation: We have a short trip to Indonesia that will occur when my son's passport has just 5 months of validity left. Indonesia requires 6 months. Starting today and until that trip to Indonesia, we will be mostly on the move, traveling to China, Macau, Singapore, UK, 5 weeks in the US, and then the travel to Indonesia. It's frustrating because there's a decent amount of time to do something about it if there was an option, but it doesn't seem like we have any real options. Passports issued in short turnaround time from overseas embassies (HK, Singapore, UK) I believe are emergency passports that would not be accepted for travel to Indonesia. Really, getting his application in the US is the only possibility, yet we can't start that process until we arrive in the US (since we must apply in person) and then the 5 week time period is not long enough. It seems like our only possibility will be the urgent travel appointment inside the 14-day window before travel. 1) that seems very risky to wait til then but what can we do? and 2) I'm not sure if that would help. Is the passport issued in such a scenario a fully valid passport and not an "emergency passport?" Logic suggests that it would be since it's designed for Americans traveling abroad (unlike an emergency passport which might be for Americans abroad to return to the states) but I don't want to assume anything.

Thanks for any insight and if there's any other possibility I've overlooked. Thanks!

1. No, These are NOT "Emergency passports"
2. Will you be in any of those other places for more than a week, or can you extend? Because that would be better than doing it in the US.
3. I have traveled to Indonesia with less than 3 months on my Passport. No one cared, your only possible issue might be some "officious" check in agent in the country you come from reading rote of Timatic.

It generally results in a standard, full validity passport — assuming your citizenship and identification document aren’t in question and the rest of the application are properly completed when submitted.

I sustained a serious injury abroad and lost my passport as part of the fun. Picked up an emergency/temp 1 year passport and it appears that I will be able to use that successfully to enter Singapore and Vietnam here shortly (Japan was no problem). Given the timing of everything on my docket (only going to be in the states for 2-3 weeks at a time for the foreseeable future) I'm assuming the best thing to do is to use my emergency passport to get in and out of the states over the next few months and then when I'm back in Japan go ahead and do my renewal via the consulate here (since I'll have 6-8 weeks to wait)...

1. Excellent
2. The only one that would be a week is London (10 days). However even that seems a bit rushed based on my interpretation of their website. And I can't nail down whether that would be an "emergency" passport or not. HK explicitly states that if you need it within a few days it will be the emergency variety.
3. This is good but Indonesia recently instituted an e-visa and I imagine it will be harder to slip through the cracks since the e-visa would likely ask for passport expiration dates.

2. If you tell them that you are only there a short while they of course will only give you an emergency passport! What I and others have been saying, for quite awhile is that some people are getting their FULL passports back in 4-5 business days. There is however no guarantee of this, and it can easily take several weeks and no one will guarantee anything!

3. As far as I can see Indonesia STILL has "Visa on Arrival" and evisa is still just an option. So all you are saving is a possible queue.

Are the Special Passport Acceptance Fairs better in any way vs applying at post office? I guess you save on the USPS fee, anything else? Thanks

Data points: Routine passport and card application sent via USPS Priority 3-Day Mail to Irvin, TX

06 Apr: Mailed from N Florida
09 Apr: Received in Irvin, TX
10 Apr: Check cashed
11 Apr: Status- In progress, application locator 62
24 Jun: Status- Mailed (USPS Priority Mail)
24 Jun: USPS Informed Delivery Expected delivery: 28 Jun
26 Jun: USPS Status- Shipped from Tucson, AZ
27 Jun: Passport book delivered (Next Generation Passport) :)

82 days

03 Jul: Passport Card delivered- Shipped from Tucson, AZ
89 days

17 Jul: Supporting Documents returned (old passport + card) Mailed from Tucson, AZ (Return addy: Sterling, VA)
103 days

Emails requested, none received.

5/25: Mailed application to Philadelphia
5/31: Application received
6/01: Check cleared
6/06: In progress
6/23: Mailed
6/28: Received
34 days!

Thank you for sharing. Was it a routine or expedited service?

Routine service. Didn't do anything special.

When you go in for your urgent travel service passport appointment, do they check that your current passport is not valid for travel anymore? Basically, I have a trip to Indonesia departing Jul 17. Indonesia requires 6 months of passport validity for entry and my passport expires Jan 12, so it wouldn't be valid for my trip. Not wanting to take chances on getting an appointment on Jul 17 for my travel on Jul 17, I made an appointment for Jul 5 by booking a mileage ticket to YVR on Jul 5 evening that I have no intention of actually flying. The only issue is that my current passport is perfectly fine for my "trip to YVR on Jul 5". Is this something they might check when I arrive at the appointment, or is the travel within 14 days thing just a formality box they have to check?

Most of my in-person urgent travel appointments at US passport agency offices in the country have been done for US passports that were still valid for travel at the time of in-person application. Sometimes they look at the application travel date info or ask when the imminent travel is so they can figure out how fast they have to move the file, but don’t worry about that being a problem.

If you have an appointment, they shouldn’t care whether your current US passport is still valid for travel or not as long as it’s still useful as proof of citizenship/identity for the paid application — assuming you are using it for that proof for passport eligibility.

If at the time of paying and submitting your properly completed application they say they can’t turn it fast enough for you to make the July 5th evening flight and make an issue of it, just note that the airline may be more willing to freely rebook you on standby within 24 hours of originally scheduled travel and early enough next day pick up is better than nothing.

I once had a gate-dragon at LHR threaten to refuse me boarding onto the plane because he noticed with old stamps on my EuroVW passport that I used to have a Green Card. I told him I didn't have one anymore, but he absolutely wanted to see evidence of it. Through sheer luck I happened to have the piece of paper the US embassy produces after a GC has been given up somewhere in my travel folder. Not too sure how it would have turned out otherwise...