renew my US passport, at this time of year, in this part of the country,
February 3, 2025 9:38 PM   Subscribe

I have slightly less than 3 years left on my US passport until it expires. Should I try to get it renewed right now?

I live and work in the US and have a US passport. I just got back from an international trip. Things are absolutely bonkers in the US and I’m scared and want to be prepared for anything. I saw that my passport expires in January 2028, which means I have just under 3 years left out of 10 on it, which rounds down to 2 which is basically zero. I of course didn’t think about it at all last year, when it was 2024, and my passport didn’t expire until 2028 which was basically 4 years away, which rounded up to 5 which is pretty much only half of the passport’s useful life.

I’m not planning any travel out of the country for at least 5 months or maybe more and have no concrete plans to do anything even then at the moment. As previously mentioned, things are absolutely bonkers in the US and I’m scared and want to be prepared for anything. Should I try to submit my passport renewal now and risk it getting stuck in the gears of the current chaos wave? Or do I gamble and wait til next year and assume that it will be functionally possible to renew later and you know actually get a passport back? what would you do if you were me? I am white and cis but have some donations and etc that can be considered politically suspect. I would be paying for expedited processing.
posted by crime online to Law & Government (18 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Things are so chaotic in the fedgov right now, I'd avoid sending in a renewal currently just because I imagine there's an increased chance of random screwups.
posted by kickingtheground at 9:49 PM on February 3 [18 favorites]


Once you submit it, you basically have no passport until you get the renewed one. (Even if you can renew online, once you submit the application, it invalidates your current passport.) I would wait until things stabilize.
posted by lapis at 9:57 PM on February 3 [4 favorites]


I would renew it. We have little reason to think things will become more stable.
posted by latkes at 10:03 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]


I don’t think this is the time, not because it’s not important, but because federal workers are super stressed.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:52 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]


Do all your gender markers match? You've never done a gender change? You've never done a name change? If all of the answers to these questions are "yes" then renew your passport.

If you answered "no" to any of those questions, don't do it!
posted by blnkfrnk at 11:05 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]


Agree with blnkfrnk. No need to renew unless you"ll be out of the US for several years. Requesting a renewal so early could raise suspicions.
posted by Rash at 2:56 AM on February 4


I was hoping to renew on line but as of yesterday the online form was offline 0_o
posted by cindywho at 4:56 AM on February 4


You can't renew your passport until the expiration date is 1 year away from today.
posted by chasles at 5:01 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]


You can't renew your passport until the expiration date is 1 year away from today.

This page does not mention any limitation like that:
https://www.usa.gov/renew-adult-passport
posted by soelo at 5:10 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]


My understanding (from someone running a place where they take in the applications) is that passports are turning around very efficiently now, not like a year or so ago when they took much longer.

I would get it now, before The Meddlers In Government can screw anything up any worse.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:12 AM on February 4


You can't renew your passport until the expiration date is 1 year away from today.

Emphatically not true. I renewed mine last year with 2.5 years to go.
posted by caek at 6:18 AM on February 4 [1 favorite]


The one-year-from-expiration rule applies to the online renewal system, which is supposedly very fast for turnarounds. If you have more time left on your passport you'll need to renew by mail.
posted by thecaddy at 7:20 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]


"You can't renew your passport until the expiration date is 1 year away from today"
Yes you can, I just did this last month. I applied by mail and it took about 2 weeks to process. However, OP, if you do not have to renew your passport right now I would hold off a bit. 3 years is not really "down to the wire" on expiration time and it sounds like there could be some delays now due to the executive orders coming in.
posted by 4rtemis at 8:14 AM on February 4


Thanks for asking this. My passport expires later this year, and I have no international travel planned for the next several months, so I was going to renew this month. However with the chaos injected into the federal government by TFGs, I was also thinking of waiting a bit. I mean, we're only two weeks in; I can wait another two weeks to see if things start to slow down (i.e. court proceedings start to gum up the current shock-and-awe campaign). And yes I realize that it could be even worse in two weeks [insert pointer to US Politics thread here].

The question that I'll hijack this thread with is: should I get both a new passport book and a passport card? The card is more convenient to carry when just walking around, touristing. By my reading of the rules, requesting both requires that I use the mail-in method, which is what I would prefer anyway. The only drawback is that I have to send in my old passport (book), which they will send back to me when cancelled, but I could see them f***ing that up and then I lose the travel history I have in that book. (desired for nostalgia reasons, but ask me about the R*ssian visa process sometime)
posted by intermod at 9:36 AM on February 4


The usual advice is to renew at least 6 months before it expires. I'd say even if you double that, you still have 12-18 months to go before you need to worry.

I have both the card and the book. AND RealID (state-level). The Card's only good to Mexico and Canada anyway... AFAIK.
posted by kschang at 12:13 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]


some data points. my partner and i both just went throught the renewal process. my card was set to expire in 16 months, partner's in 6 years. both renewals went through fine.

we sent in our old passports/cards on 13 jan (a week before TFG), and received our new passports 30 jan. new cards arrived on 3 feb. it totally sucks that they require your old documents. we've been in a mild panic for three weeks, wondering if we'd be locked out of international travel.

this is one part of the bureaucracy that i imagine could be DOGE-proof, only because it's used by a ton of rich people who absolutely need the service for world travel. that said, it's possible that TFG could decide to delay/deny applications based on various ugly criteria (blue states? non-whites?). i read that they're already enforcing strict M or F gender declarations.
posted by bruceo at 1:00 PM on February 4


If you are looking to avoid federal chaos, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington all offer an enhanced license. It can be used to " allow re-entry into the United States via land and sea from Canada, Mexico,
Bermuda or the Caribbean". That is what a passport card does, so you should be fine just an EID. It is also RealID compliant for domestic air travel (deadline is May 7th, 2025). It does not help with international flights, even those into Canada and Mexico.
posted by soelo at 1:50 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]


You can't renew your passport until the expiration date is 1 year away from today. as pointed out apparently this limitation only applies to online applications... Apologies.
posted by chasles at 6:01 PM on February 6


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