Renewing a US passport is mostly a paperwork problem, and two decisions early on determine how much paperwork you actually face. The first is whether you can renew online instead of by mail. The second, if you cannot, is whether to use the State Department’s online Form Filler or fill out the form yourself.
Most guides skip both. Here is what is worth knowing before you start.
Check Whether You Can Renew Online First
The State Department now lets many adult passport holders renew entirely online, with no form to print and nothing to mail. If you qualify, you can stop reading after this section.
Eligibility is genuinely restrictive, and the rules have changed more than once. In broad terms you need to be an adult renewing an undamaged passport you still hold, applying from inside the United States, with no name change, and not travelling for at least six weeks. The current requirements are listed on the official renew online page, and that is the page to trust — the specific date windows and conditions are updated periodically, so it is not worth memorizing them from any third-party article, including this one.
Two things to be careful about:
Use only the official site. Search results for passport renewal are full of paid third-party services that charge a markup to submit forms you could file yourself. The State Department runs the only official online renewal.
Online renewal invalidates your current passport immediately. That is why the six-week travel rule exists. If you have a trip sooner than that, renewing online is the wrong choice regardless of eligibility.
If you do not qualify, you renew by mail on form DS-82, and the rest of this applies.
The Eligibility Gate Is Six Lines Long
Before anything else, read Section A on the first page of DS-82. It is six yes-or-no statements:
- You can submit your most recent passport book or card with the application
- You were at least 16 when it was issued
- It was issued less than 15 years ago
- It has not been mutilated, damaged, or reported lost or stolen
- It was not limited to less than the normal ten-year validity
- Your name has not changed, or it has and you can submit certified documentation
The form does not soften the consequence:
If you answered “NO” to any of the statements above, STOP. You cannot use this form.
Two minutes of reading tells you whether you are on the right form at all. A lost or stolen passport means DS-11 plus DS-64. A damaged one also pushes you off the renewal path.
The Form Filler Asks for More Than the Form Does
The State Department offers an online Form Filler that interviews you and prints a completed application. It works, and it produces a valid form. But it is one wizard covering several different passport forms, so it asks the union of every form’s questions rather than only the ones on yours.
That shows up in two places.
The Most Recent Passport Screen Branches
The screen asking about your current passport offers four options: you have a book, a card, both, or you are a first-time applicant. Choosing “both” splits the page into parallel panels, each asking whether you still hold the document — with four possible answers — plus its issue date, the name printed on it, and its number.
Two of those answers disqualify you from DS-82 entirely. The wizard routes this correctly, but you find out by working through branching options rather than by reading the six-line list above.
It Asks for Your Parents and Spouse
This one is clearer. The wizard presents a screen titled “Applicant’s Parent & Spouse Information”, requesting for each of two parents: first and middle name at birth, last name at birth, date of birth, place of birth, sex, and US citizenship. Then it asks whether you have ever been married.
None of that is on DS-82. We extracted every fillable field from the current revision. The form has 75 fields, and the only one containing the word “marriage” is a checkbox for whether your name changed by marriage — a name-change question, not a question about a spouse. There is no field anywhere for a parent’s name, birth date, birthplace, sex, or citizenship.
Those are DS-11 questions. A first-time applicant partly establishes citizenship through their parents, so DS-11 asks. A renewal does not, because your existing passport already settled it.
The Form Filler still earns its place if you are a first-time applicant, if you are unsure which form your situation calls for, or if you simply prefer answering questions to reading a form. For a plain renewal, the form is shorter than the interview about the form.
What DS-82 Actually Asks
Six pages: four of instructions, two you fill in. The 75 fields cover a narrow set of facts:
- Your name, date of birth, place of birth, and Social Security number
- The number and issue date of your most recent passport book, card, or both
- The name printed on that passport, and any name change since, with date and place
- Your mailing address and permanent address
- Phone, email, height, hair color, eye color, occupation, employer or school
- An emergency contact, with address, phone, email, and relationship to you
- Your travel plans, if you have them
The form’s own estimate is 40 minutes, and that includes reading the instructions.
Build In More Time Than the Processing Estimate
Routine service runs about 4 to 6 weeks, and expedited service about 2 to 3 weeks for an extra fee. Check the current figures on the official processing times page before you plan around them, because they move with demand.
The number people miss is mailing. The State Department notes it can take two weeks for your application to reach them and two weeks for the passport to reach you, on top of processing. A “4 to 6 week” routine renewal can be a ten-week round trip in practice.
If you have travel inside 14 days, routine and expedited service are both irrelevant — that requires an appointment at a passport agency and proof of imminent international travel.
First-time applicants and anyone replacing a lost or damaged passport apply in person on DS-11 and need an appointment at an acceptance facility. If your local scheduler shows nothing for weeks, how to find a USPS passport appointment faster covers where else applications are accepted and when slots open.
Current fees are listed on the official renew by mail page alongside the mailing address. We deliberately do not quote them here; they change, and a stale number in a blog post is worse than a link.
The Mistakes That Send Applications Back
From the form’s own instructions and the rules it states:
An unsigned application. The form says in capitals that you must sign and date it in the designated area. This is among the most common reasons a renewal comes back.
Corrections and white-out. The instruction is explicit: “Please print legibly using black ink only. If you make an error, complete a new form. Do not correct or white out.” Print a fresh copy rather than fixing a mistake in place.
Forgetting to include your old passport. DS-82 requires you to submit your most recent passport book or card with the application. That is the first line of the eligibility gate, and it is not optional.
A photo that does not meet spec. A correct form with a rejected photo still comes back.
The Photo Requirements Have Not Changed
Your photo must be 2x2 inches, taken within the last six months, on a plain white or off-white background, with a neutral expression, both eyes open, and no glasses. It is stapled to the first application page in the marked area.
Upload a photo to uspassportphoto.com and you get a 4x6 print file containing two correctly sized 2x2 photos for $7, which you can print at any photo counter for under a dollar. If you are not satisfied, you get a full refund.
For the printing step, see our guides to printing at CVS and printing at Walgreens, or compare retailers in our price comparison. Our guide to taking a great passport photo covers the requirements in full, and baby passport photo requirements covers infants, whose rules differ.
Key Details
Renew online if you can. Many adults qualify. Check the official renew online page. It invalidates your current passport immediately, so it is unsuitable within six weeks of travel.
Otherwise use DS-82. Revision 04-2025, OMB Control No. 1405-0020. Six pages, 75 fillable fields.
Eligibility. Six yes-or-no statements in Section A. All must be “yes”.
Parent and spouse information. Requested by the Form Filler. Not present on DS-82.
Estimated time to complete. 40 minutes, per the form.
Processing. Roughly 4 to 6 weeks routine, 2 to 3 weeks expedited, plus about two weeks of mail in each direction. Verify current times before planning.
Photo. One 2x2 inch color photo taken within the last six months, stapled to the application.
Sources: DS-82 application form, Renew by Mail, Renew Online, and Processing Times.