Urgent Passport Issues? Join the Line

Urgent passport needs are taking over the travel zeitgeist in America as the country is seeing the largest swell in passport applications … ever. 

Whether it’s about a first-time passport or a U.S. passport renewal or even an urgent passport, the lines are long, that wait times are absurd and a beleaguer Antony Blinken is seeing red. 

“We will issue more passports this year than in any previous year, but that’s just a reflection of the fact that demand is higher than it’s ever been,” the Secretary of State said in a press conference yesterday. “ And we’re throwing everything we can at this, trying to make sure that people have those blue books, that they’re able to travel.  And it’s something that comes up repeatedly with members of Congress, with folks that I come across.  So what I can tell you is – and we can get you the actual numbers, but there’s unprecedent demand, there’s an unprecedent effort, and we’re trying to do our best at getting people their passports.”

In other words, get in line, or get a lottery ticket – those in need may have a better chance of winning Powerball then being allow to travel to Europe this summer. 

Missed Trips

A number of irate travelers are sharing horror stories of cancel travel plans and high-dollar travel investments lost due to passports that never arrives after not weeks, but months of waiting. The understaff and overburden U.S. Passport Agency has been receiving a whopping 500,000 passport applications per week breaking all records.  

The troubled State Department is citing the sharp increase in travel after lockdowns during the COVID era, when employees of the agency were either furlough or fires. They have not been able to catch up to the demand.

“I was just – I guess about three weeks ago – visiting our passport office in New York, the largest passport office that we have, and saw the operation firsthand and saw people working overtime, double time, triple time to get blue books into people’s hands.  The demand for passports is greater than it’s ever been,” Blinken said.

The shutdown of the official Online Passport Renewal (OPR) System has not helps. All passport requests  have to make by mail or other means and often require an appointment at a designate passport office – if you can get through and then get a meeting that makes sense.

Prolongue Wait Times

Historically, wait periods have range from six to eight weeks. For a more urgent passport need that time could reduces to two or three days with expedite requests, which can purchase for an additional $60 (on top of the regular and necessary $130 charge, plus a $35 execution fee for new passports; $130 fee for renewal; and $20 for urgent passport sending). 

Advisors are currently stating 15 to 18 weeks (expedite times would seven to nine weeks) to account for sending both ways. The arrival country’s requirement that a passport be valid for at least six months past the requests visa dates may also affect travelers. For instance, the Middle East and Asia Pacific region require a passport to be valid for at least six months in order to be admitts, while other nations, including those in the Schengen region, demand that a U.S. passport be valid for at least 90 days past the intend date of departure. 

That is what happen to this writer who, in the middle of writing an article about passport pandemonium, realizes an upcoming trip planned for the U.A.E. next month may be in jeopardy over a passport that expires … in mid February 2024. 

Urgent Passport Workarounds

Workarounds, or ways to bypass the line, the uncertainty and the draconian wait times are available — but they are not free. Call them expeditor services or courier services and they can be a godsend for those with urgent passport needs. To process your passport application, some offices charge a handling fee that might be between $100 and $300 in addition to official passport charges with waits of up to a month. The more speedy the turnaround, that higher the ante. 

Working with a schedule of appointments reserves by the government for these businesses, they submit the papers and receive the passport back in a few days or weeks. The inside track is supposedly their “relationships” with designates couriers that given permission to enter federal buildings (regulations from Covid days) to deposit applications and retrieve process passports. 

Workarounds: Urgent passport

For others with urgent passport needs, a number of expeditor services can found online, although one does not know for sure whether there is a there there. For those who have an urgent need to travel or super urgent passport needs, same-day service is available with air ticket in hand; however, an in-person appointment is still requires and is best schedule by phoning the National Passport Information Center at 877-487-2778, which does have a call channel for urgent passport cases. 

After calling the national passport number about my own needs and waiting only 30 minutes for an agent, I learn that one can take a chance with this system for the lower rates of $130 processing plus $60 for expediting plus another fee for express mailing. However, an appointment would have make by calling exactly three weeks before departure to get an appointment for the two weeks before departure urgent passport requirement and one would have to trust that the passport could obtaine by departure … all manages on a first come first serves basis with unprecedent masses of people all making the same requests at the same time.

In the end, I opt for a local third-party expeditor. I call phone number, a human answer, information sent to me and I visits a real office with busy bees for staffers. The paperwork was doing correctly and sent with the proper money orders to the U.S. Passport Agency and then a thank you fee of $250 by credit card was delivering to the expeditor – and a thank you fee it was. The passport could expect to hand within less than three weeks – trip on and disaster avert. Or not. Stay tune!