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Updates
July 5, 2025: The WSJ today. Whoo-hoo! They're reading the blog! My passport arrived today; photos pending. Couldn't be happier.
Original Post
I applied to renew my expired passport online less than ten days ago. Took me about twenty minutes to complete the online application.
Same day response from the US State Department that they had received my application and would begin processing my application once the credit card payment cleared.
Two days later, I received a note from the US State Dept letting me know that the payment had cleared and they had began processing my application.
Today, I received an e-mail saying the passport and the passport card had been completed and both have been mailed, and mailed separately. I think the whole process took less than ten days and three - five days of that will be due to mailing the documents. Truly amazing.
My passport expired in 2023 and I thought I would have to do a whole lot more to get a new passport, but if a passport is expired less than five years, it can be simply renewed on line.
Amazing.
By the way, I let my passport expire because I thought I would never need it again; I'm done traveling overseas. But it turns out, everything I do, it seems, "someone" asks me for my passport -- including when I went to renew my Texas "Real ID" driver's license. Say what you want, this country does pretty well in the big scheme of things.
Advice: the most important thing -- get your passport photo taken by someone who knows what they are doing. I had no problem with my passport photo but I can say without qualification the photo was the most challenging part of the process.
Submitted June 24, 2025, on-line:
June 24, 2025 -- July 9, 2025: 16 days -- less than three weeks.
