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Current US passport wait? (Merged Threads)

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Old Mar 1, 2022, 6:35 am
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Last edit by: CKDGM
Passport Agency Appointments (same day expedited service)
Appointments for same-day expedited service often go quickly. It is best that you schedule your appointment with the passport agency exactly 14 days before your trip. You will want to call the passport number before the center opens at 8am EST as they will have just opened up one day (14 days out) of appointments at all agencies. Appointment times start at 8am. It is important that you have enough buffer in your travel schedule. For example, if you make an appointment for a new passport at 11am and your time of travel is at 2pm, there will not be enough time for you to get your passport. If you book the 8am slot you may have to wait until the end of the business day to get your new passport or it may only be a few hours.

You will want to have your date of travel, time of travel, your flight itinerary number, name of destination, full name of applicant, and applicant's birth city, and the zip code of where you live (to help them find the closest available center with open slots). Use the following steps to increase your chances of success to booking an appointment as they can go very quickly:
  1. 14 days before your trip, you need to schedule an appointment with the passport agency.
  2. At 7:55 am call the passport number 877-487-2778 (This have to be exactly 14 days before your plane ticket or less. If less, it will get harder to find an appointment)
  3. Click 1 (For English)
  4. Click 2 (New Passport)
  5. Continue to Click 7 to repeat, and keep doing this while watching your watch or using Time.gov to get the exact time down to the second.
  6. When your it hits exactly 8:00 am Click 2 (for traveling within 14 days option)
  7. There will be a delay of 3-4 second and you will wait for the next available agent. If you are very lucky, you will be put straight through to an agent. You may be waiting few minutes or maybe as long as 15-20 minutes.
  8. If you did not click 1 exactly at 8 am, you may have to wait for more than an hour and half
After the appointment slot has been reserved you will be provided with a unique identifier code and reservation number. These details will also be emailed to you.

Credit: chgoeditor

Known office locator numbers (not complete)
Note: The office code (first two digits of your application locator number returned by Passport Status) is the office reviewing your documents and approving your application. It isn't necessarily the address you mailed the forms to (always Irving or Philadelphia for renewals) nor the facility where the book is physically printed and mailed (often Tucson or Hot Springs).

10: Boston
11: NYC
12: Honolulu
14: Stamford, CT
15: Portsmouth, NH
17: Aurora, CO
18: Chicago
19: Washington, DC
20-29: Portsmouth, NH
34-39: Charleston
40-42: New Orleans, LA
45: Portsmouth, NH
50: Los Angeles, CA
51: Miami
53: Seattle
54: Minneapolis
55: Dallas
56: Detroit
57: San Francisco
58: Philadelphia, PA
61-64: Tucson
65: Hot Springs, AR
67: San Juan, PR
68: Portsmouth, NH
69: Portsmouth, NH
71: US embassies/consulates abroad (possibly Portsmouth, NH)
74: Atlanta
75: St Albans, VT
76: San Diego, CA
77: Buffalo, NY
78: El Paso, TX
79: Houston, TX
80: Special Issuance Agency ("Issues diplomatic, official, service, and no-fee regular passports, and facilitates visa processing for those traveling on behalf of the U.S. government.")
95: Online

A list of agencies and their locator numbers is listed on this page under the heading, "List of passport agencies and centers with locator numbers."

H/T Nayef, txviking, and various individual posts both here and on Reddit. If you have a locator not in the above list, check the return address agency name or postmark/ZIP on your returned citizenship docs, or passport card if you applied for one, which may be the processing office, although the address itself is likely to be a PO Box in Sterling, VA in all cases (which appears to be a lockbox location that processes mail for all locations). The passport books are printed in fewer locations, often Hot Springs and Tucson, and may not correspond to the agency where the processing steps occurred. If it doesn’t match the list above, please add or correct.
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Current US passport wait? (Merged Threads)

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Old Mar 24, 2025 | 3:06 am
  #2866  
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Let's get back to focusing on the historical reason for this important thread:

”CURRENT US PASSPORT WAIT”


Future off topic posts are subject to removal or transfer.
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Old Apr 15, 2025 | 12:05 pm
  #2867  
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My partner and I just had a baby and we're traveling the first week of June. We live in a city with a passport office and now have the baby's birth certificate and social security card. Would it be better for us to go through the traditional passport process immediately, knowing that we're about seven weeks from the date of international travel at the time of this post, or should we wait and go with the passport office within 14 days of travel?
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Old Apr 15, 2025 | 1:47 pm
  #2868  
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Originally Posted by steveholt
My partner and I just had a baby and we're traveling the first week of June. We live in a city with a passport office and now have the baby's birth certificate and social security card. Would it be better for us to go through the traditional passport process immediately, knowing that we're about seven weeks from the date of international travel at the time of this post, or should we wait and go with the passport office within 14 days of travel?
You can do the traditional process immediately with Expedited service and you should normally receive the passport well ahead of your travel date. I personally would be too nervous to wait until I'm within 14 days of travel when you can probably already have the passport in hand by then. Plus waiting at the NYC passport office wouldn't be my favorite way to spend the day with a newborn...

I just did a regular non expedited child passport on Thursday 4/10 and will have a DP to share probably within a few weeks which isn't going to be of help to you at this point but may be for others. The $100 check was cashed today 4/15.
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Old Apr 15, 2025 | 4:33 pm
  #2869  
 
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Originally Posted by steveholt
My partner and I just had a baby and we're traveling the first week of June. We live in a city with a passport office and now have the baby's birth certificate and social security card. Would it be better for us to go through the traditional passport process immediately, knowing that we're about seven weeks from the date of international travel at the time of this post, or should we wait and go with the passport office within 14 days of travel?
Recent DP as we recently mailed in an application with expedited processing and shipping — took 13 (total) days from the Department of State accepting the application. 7 weeks should be more than enough time sans any application/shipping issues.

You could always book an international trip within 2 weeks of now and get the passport via the office sooner…maybe a ticket to Toronto?
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Old Apr 19, 2025 | 12:32 pm
  #2870  
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Mine (a renewal, so take with a little grain of salt) literally took two days.
Submitted application > processed > new one sent within 2-3 days.

So by that metric, they're either (1) not busy, or (2) have a lot of capacity.
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Old Apr 20, 2025 | 9:47 pm
  #2871  
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Originally Posted by lindros2
Mine (a renewal, so take with a little grain of salt) literally took two days.
Submitted application > processed > new one sent within 2-3 days.

So by that metric, they're either (1) not busy, or (2) have a lot of capacity.
Was this done online or in person?
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Old Apr 21, 2025 | 6:04 am
  #2872  
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Originally Posted by friedablass
Was this done online or in person?
online.
(I live in a state w/o in-person capability - the best we can do is 'package' up ours at a 'passport center' but it gets mailed in)

Note that once your physical stuff is in their hands, they scan it into the system and it goes into the same online round-robin queue... unless you do 100% in-person like in Houston.
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Old Apr 28, 2025 | 2:06 pm
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Originally Posted by friedablass
I just did a regular non expedited child passport on Thursday 4/10 and will have a DP to share probably within a few weeks which isn't going to be of help to you at this point but may be for others. The $100 check was cashed today 4/15.
Update:
4/25 very early a.m. received email that status changed to Approved (10 days after check was cashed)
4/25 10+ hours after that in the afternoon, I received another email that the passport book Shipped via USPS Priority mail and tracking number was provided
4/28 today passport was received

So 18 days from the day we applied in person at the local post office until we received the passport in our possession. This is I think even faster than expedited service used to take but I'm guessing it's not something you can rely on if you have travel plans and don't want to be nervous that you'll get the passport in time. We're not planning to go anywhere with this kid until July or August or maybe not even at all but I always want to make sure we have a valid passport on hand just in case.

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Old May 5, 2025 | 1:49 pm
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Here is my U.S. Passport renewal process:
  • U.S. Passport renewal mailed: 21 March 2025
  • Arrived in Irving, TX.: 24 March 2025
  • Rejected: 7 April 2025 [photo]
  • Resubmitted: 15 April 2025
  • Arrived in Irving, TX.: 19 April 2025
  • Approved: 30 April 2025
  • Return Address: Charleston, SC. 29405
  • Accepted in Tucson, AZ. 85710: 2 May 2025
  • Travelled from Tucson to Chicago in 56 minutes.
  • Went out and was delivered in 203 minutes.
  • Arrived in Chicago, IL. 60641: 3 May 2025
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Old May 23, 2025 | 10:11 am
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Really pleasantly surprised.

Applied online late evening May 11
Payment processed May 15
Approved May 16
Shipped May 17
In my hands..no expedited shipped May 21

Really efficient.
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Old Aug 19, 2025 | 1:42 pm
  #2876  
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Originally Posted by worldiswide
Really pleasantly surprised.

Applied online late evening May 11
Payment processed May 15
Approved May 16
Shipped May 17
In my hands..no expedited shipped May 21

Really efficient.
I hope this is my case!

8/17 - Applied online for renewal (using digital pic); no changes needed
8/19 - Received email today saying payment successful & application will be transferred for processing
8/20 - Received email "In Process"
8/25 - "Shipped". Says it originated from Tucson.

I wasn't allowed to choose expedited with digital, so I am in the "regular" queue, and I paid for expedited shipping. I wonder if it's a quicker process, in their hands, when done digitally. Seems so?

Travel date: end of Sept, so I am riding the line if it actually takes more than 4 weeks

Last edited by Weyland Yutani Corp; Aug 26, 2025 at 12:34 pm Reason: added status email
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Old Oct 20, 2025 | 5:50 pm
  #2877  
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Even though the US government is shutdown, and the State Department's website says passport operations will still continue, I figured that things would take longer.

Baby Swede, now 18, applied for her first adult passport book and card this past Tuesday (10/14). We received an e-mail from state.gov today stating they received it and will process the application, etc.

That said, https://passportstatus.state.gov/ appears to be down.
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Old Oct 21, 2025 | 12:32 am
  #2878  
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Yes, passport operations (as well as Global Entry applications) are all self-funding by the fees, so they are continuing to operate, business as usual.
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Last edited by diburning; Oct 24, 2025 at 7:17 am
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Old Oct 23, 2025 | 9:35 pm
  #2879  
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Originally Posted by pseudoswede
Even though the US government is shutdown, and the State Department's website says passport operations will still continue, I figured that things would take longer.

Baby Swede, now 18, applied for her first adult passport book and card this past Tuesday (10/14). We received an e-mail from state.gov today stating they received it and will process the application, etc.

That said, https://passportstatus.state.gov/ appears to be down.
Wow. Just got multiple e-mails today saying the application was approved, passport book and card printed, and shipped via USPS. Expected delivery date of 10/27, so less than two weeks!
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Old Nov 18, 2025 | 12:32 pm
  #2880  
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11/12 - Applied online for renewal in afternoon eastern time. Requested 52-page passport book and card. Rejected pic from AAA office, accepted a selfie against an off white wall.
11/13 - Received In Process Notification
11/17 - (early evening) Received Approval Email
11/17 - (late evening) Received Shipping Notification and tracking number
11/22 - Passport book arrived in mail. Sent US Priority Mail with tracking.
11/24 - Passport card arrived in mail. Sent USPS First Class mail in a normal letter sized envelope.

Last edited by mkt; Nov 24, 2025 at 7:53 pm
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