If you read my colleague Sean Hollister’s positive experience renewing his US passport online through a beta website from the State Department — without needing to ship his old passport — I have good news for you: that experience is now available for everyone. You can access it right here.
“Instead of printing a paper application and mailing it with a check, Americans can now renew their passports through a secure process that will save time and effort,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken writes in an announcement about the program.
Right now, the renewal website is showing a six- to eight-week estimate for processing times, and the State Department notes that mailing times aren’t included in that estimate. That all means you may not get your renewed passport back in just a single week, like Sean did. (You’ll also have to meet certain requirements to be able to renew your passport online.)
However, Blinken notes that the average routine passport is being processed at “well under” the advertised window, so if you do renew your passport through this website, you might still see a relatively quick turnaround.