While it’s still not an excuse to wait until the last minute, processing times for United States passport applications have returned to pre-pandemic levels, according to the State Department.
“With this update, we have fulfilled our commitment to return to benchmarks from March 2020,” the department said in a statement on Monday. “This reflects the work of dedicated employees working for the American people.”
In the announcement, the State Department shared that routine passport applications currently take six to eight weeks to process, and the expedited service takes two to three weeks with a $60 fee.
Processing times jumped from six to eight weeks to 10 to 13 as recently as July, thanks to an increase in overseas travel and several other pandemic-related factors.
During some weeks this past summer, the State Department saw as many as 400,000 applications submitted.
To accommodate the demand for passports, a department spokesperson shared that staffing levels have increased by 12% since December 2022.
From January 2023 through October 2023, the department has also approved 30,000 to 40,000 hours of overtime each month to help accommodate the demand.
Volunteers from other areas of the department were also called on to help fulfill orders.
Now, 48% of all Americans possess a current U.S. Passport, compared to just 5% in 1990. Nearly 160 million valid U.S. passports are in circulation, nearly double the number that were in 2007.
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