Renewed US passport: turnaround time, 11 days.

Received my new US passport in this morning's post. Sent the application in on May 9. I've gotta say, I've never heard of such a fast turn around of an application for passport renewal except for expedited service, which isn't available to Americans living abroad. And it was an expired passport that required a name change (I've married since I got my last passport).

I had expected it to take up to a month or more since travel season is upon us. Anyone else had such good luck?

And this passport is way different from my old passport. It has the embedded electronic thingy and the ID/photo page has a different feel to it and a watermark across my photo.

A far cry from the huge delays experienced when the rules changed a while back.

I read somewhere that most expatriates' passport applications are processed in the US; but I can't imagine that this was true in my case: 11 days, and four of them were weekend days. I was very, very surprised, and I'm glad you had good luck, too. :hi:

and there was an extra charge for expedited processing.

All that data mining slowed up the system.

Just think, if Mckook had been elected, that electronic thingy would have likely been embedded under your skin...

through Boston, and it still took about a week. (My mother-in-law's jaw dropped when I showed her the place on the front of my new passport where the electronic thingy is. She'd never heard of such a thing and I think it struck here as a little freaky. I didn't tell her that the Swiss biometric passport has been available for about three years.)

a couple days later. We were astonished at how quickly it came back. He was a little concerned about having to send in his original naturalization certificate, but it came back the day after the passport arrived.

And congratulations to your husband on his naturalization!

for a trip to Norway, and this news will save me the money of an expedited renewal fee.
Thanks for posting!

But I'm hinky about stuff like that. My US passport actually expired while I was waiting for my Swiss "permesso" to be renewed; I didn't want to be without some government issued form of ID besides a driver's license, so I was about a month "overdue" when I applied for renewal of my passport. x(

Have fun in Norway! *envy*

I had a similar experience when I had to renew last year for a contract (mine just gave out before I re-signed) it only took abuot 2 weeks before I got my new one.

I was suprised, and pleased.

The next thing..... my passport needs to have an "accident" with a bulk eraser...

The Italian-speaking part. :hi:

Re: the bulk eraser temptation, and I quote ( :scared: ):

Page 5: ALTERATION OR MUTILATION OF PASSPORT
This passport must not be altered or mutilated in any way. Alteration could make the passport invalid, and if willful, may subject you to prosection (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1543)

i had nooooooo idea that a super electro magnet would damage my paper passport...

:rofl:

it'd be a shame if something were to happen to that pretty little RFID chip in your passport, wouldn't it?
accident happen...:shrug:
perhaps, say you accidentally left it out in your car one cold cold sub-zero night.
how can you possibly know that would damage that pretty rfid chip :shrug:

i dunno. i'm a little bothered by this whole "tracking you literally with your passport crap".

It really isn't their business where I go inside a country, and I suppose currently the chip is too weak for that.

I just don't like it.

And ya know, in the 10 years I've been here, the only place I've _ever_ been asked to show a passport is at an airport. In fact, my old passport doesn't have a single stamp in it, and I've traveled quite a bit around Europe in the last decade. As you said: nobody's business where I go inside a country. In fact, as long as I commit no crimes, it's nobody's business where I go at all.

I was expecting 4 to 6 weeks since that's what they told me but 8 friggin days I couldn't believe it.. That has to be a record. Oh and it wasn't even a renewal it's the first and only passport I've ever had.

Something has changed, I think. I used to hear horror stories about how long it took some folks to get a first-ever or renewed passport.

And since I was traveling overseas almost constantly, it was really a pain, because you can't get a renewal without turning in your old passport. So how was a traveling businessman supposed to conduct business if he's stranded in the US because he had to forfeit his passport?