State Department says now is a good time to get a passport

JEK

Senior Insider
September 4, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. EDT



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State Department officials say now is a good time to renew an expired passport or apply for a new one, though dozens of countries still do not admit most American tourists because of coronavirus fears.


A large backlog of passport applications that was waiting to be processed when the Bureau of Consular Affairs, which also handles visas, went into lockdown in mid-March has been tackled. Passport processors are now chipping away at applications that have arrived since then.


The slowdown caused by the pandemic hit passport operations particularly hard. Most State Department employees in the United States and overseas have been teleworking, but passports cannot be processed at home for security reasons. So almost 1.8 million applications that were in the pipeline just sat there for three months.

Now, after resuming operations on a limited basis in mid-June, officials say they have worked through the initial backlog and expect to return to normal processing times this fall.

“We’ve gotten through essentially all of the backlog work, and now we’re getting back to a regular rhythm,” Ian Brownlee, the principal deputy in Consular Affairs, said this week in a video chat on the future of international travel hosted on the travel website The Points Guy. “If you’re thinking of traveling nine months out, why not apply now? The thing’s good for 10 years.”

Despite the optimistic outlook, there are still delays. The State Department says it currently takes about 10 weeks to process a passport, from application to delivery in the mail. That’s up from the six to eight weeks it typically took before the pandemic brought almost everything to a halt and the State Department stopped issuing expedited passports, which for an extra fee can get a passport in just two or three weeks.






https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...p-banner-low_passport-920a:homepage/story-ans
 
Well, some good news! My wife mailed her renewal into the State Department the week of August 24th and the new passport was received today. Normal processing not expedited.
 
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