Travel Tips
Travel Tuesday: Renewing Your Passport Online – What You Need to Know
The Beatles famously sang, “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better.” And while it’s true that not everything is always trending upwards, there are several aspects of daily life that are indeed becoming easier. My latest example involves renewing my passport — which can now be done online!
Realizing that my passport was expiring, I turned to the Internet to see how to get the process of renewing started. However, never did I imagine that I could simply order myself a new one. After all, a few short years ago, when my wife renewed her passport, she still had to mail hers off. Needless to say, I was quite pleased with this discovery.
So how does online passport renewal work? Here’s what I learned from my experience.
Online Passport Renewal: My Personal Experience
Make Sure You’re in the Right Place
First, before you start entering personal info and ordering a passport, you’ll want to make sure you’re on the correct site. If you Google “Passport renewal” and click the first link, chances are you’re going to land on a third-party site. Luckily, the search engine will try to point this out to you with a “Not a government site” tag.
Nevertheless, to renew your passport directly, you’ll want to make sure you’re on the State Department website at opr.travel.state.gov.
Qualifications
In order to renew your passport online, you’ll need to meet certain requirements. For one, as normal, you’ll need to wait until your passport is within one year of expiring — or, if it already expired, that it wasn’t more than five years ago. You’ll also need to be over the age of 25 to use this service.
Some other requirements include:
- Not changing any personal information, such as your name or sex
- Not traveling for at least six weeks from the date of application (only routine service is offered)
- You are in the United States or a U.S. territory when submitting your application
- You have your current passport with you in good condition (it’s not stolen or missing)
If you don’t meet all the requirements for online renewal, renewal by mail or in person may still be available.
Paying for Your Renewal
As of this writing (February 2026), renewing a Passport Book costs $130. This is the same price you’d pay if renewing by mail, so no need to worry about paying a premium!
What to Do with Your Old Passport
When renewing online, you won’t need to mail in your old passport. Instead, you’ll just hold onto it. That said, keep in mind that it will be canceled, so you won’t want to try using it.
Getting Your Photo
Remember when you’d need to get very specific passport photos? Well, those days are gone too. While the passport renewal site does give guidance for the framing, face, and background of your photo, you can submit one taken digitally. In my case, my wife snapped a photo using my phone.
One of the requirements is that you’ll need a white or off-white background without shadows. If you find that difficult to do, I have more good news. As it turns out, thanks to many easy-to-use background removal tools built into the likes of Canva or Preview (on Apple computers), you can tap to cut yourself out of a photo. From there, you can place it in a compliant background. Voila.
After you upload your image, it will tell you whether or not it likely meets requirements. Of course, things could change upon closer inspection, but I didn’t have any issues.
Submitting Your Application
With all that out of the way, it’s time to fill out your application. As you’d expect, this includes entering some basic information, such as your name, address, and birthdate. Naturally, you’ll also need to enter your passport number and expiration date. This will also confirm whether or not you’re eligible for online renewal.
After this, you’ll also be asked to upload your passport photo. As mentioned, once you do so, it will tell you whether or not it likely cuts muster.
Lastly, you’ll select your shipping method (more on that in a moment). After that, you’ll be all set!
Once you do submit your application, you’ll receive emails as to the status. This includes submitted, in process, and, eventually, approved. You’ll also be provided with a passport locator number should you want to check on the status in between emails.
Processing and Mailing Time
According to the State Department site, it typically takes 4 to 6 weeks to process your renewal, plus extra time to ship to you (this is why they don’t recommend online renewal if you have upcoming travel plans). However, while you can’t expedite the processing time online, you can opt for express delivery. For $22.05, you can take the estimated shipping time down from 3 to 5 days to 1 to 2 days.
One thing that’s nice is that, when you are completing your application, it will provide you with an expected delivery timeframe. When I submitted by renewal application on January 3rd, it was estimated that I’d receive my new passport book around February 19. In reality, though, it was delivered to me via USPS on January 20 — less than three weeks from my submission. In fact, when I got a notification that my application was approved on January 16th, it stated delivery was expected on January 24, so they beat that timeline as well.
Of course, just because my renewal outpaced estimated processing times it doesn’t mean that yours will. Still, I couldn’t help but be impressed with this turnaround!
Final Thoughts on Renewing Your U.S. Passport Online
As you can probably tell, the process of renewing my passport online was a breeze. Actually, perhaps it was even stronger than a breeze, as I was honestly blown away by just how much better this process was from the previous status quo. Rather than needing to go to Walgreens for a photo, printing off forms, and paying to mail off my old passport — not to mention worrying about what might happen if my passport got lost along the way — I was able to complete the full application process within a matter of minutes: no paper, printing, or mailing required.
What’s more, even though I don’t have any international travel plans on tap, I was quite pleased that I had my new passport in hand less than a month after I submitted my application. Funny enough, that meant that my fresh passport arrived before my old one technically expired.
All this is to say that, if your passport is due for renewal, there’s no need to fear! Instead, just navigate over to the State Department site and experience one of the upsides of life in the 21st century.
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