Hellobee

I knew we would need passports for Charlie and Olive one day since Mr. Bee’s parents live abroad, so we should have gotten them preemptively. Alas procrastination prevailed like usual, and we ended up needing an expediting service for Charlie and Olive’s passports for our last minute trip to the Philippines. Both Mr. Bee and I have used passport expediting services in the past with much success (procrastination prevailed again). In this post I’m going to detail everything I’ve learned about getting a standard, expedited, or super expedited passport for your child.

I *love* Olive’s passport picture. It cracks me up every day!

For complete instructions, visit the State Department’s page on obtaining a passport for minors under the age of 16. I’ve provided a general overview below.

These are the documents you need to gather:

1) Download and fill out the Form DS-11: Application for a U.S. Passport
2) Provide evidence of the child’s citizenship (birth certificates must be certified originals, but they will be mailed back to you)
3) Provide evidence of parent-child relationship (birth certificates, adoption decrees, etc.)
4) Show parents’ ID’s when applying and make photocopies of ID’s to be submitted with application (front and back unless it’s your passport)
5) Pay the applicable fees (currently $80 application fee and $25 execution fee)
6) 1 passport photo

You can apply for a passport at one of the many passport acceptance agencies (search by zipcode here), located in post offices, libraries and county clerk’s offices. Check to see if the passport acceptance agency also takes photos so you don’t have to go to a separate place for a passport photo. Also check to see what type of payment the specific location accepts, as each type of agency accepts different forms of payment. For instance, passport agencies accept credit cards, checks, and money orders, but don’t accept cash. Passport acceptance facilities, like post offices, accept checks and money orders, and some may accept cash.

The most important thing to note is that both parents must be present in person with the child when applying for a passport, unless a parent has sole custody (with proof provided) or the absent parent completes a Notarized Statement of Consent. Once you apply in person and provide all the requisite paperwork and fees, your child’s passport should arrive in 4-6 weeks.

E X P E D I T E D  P A S S P O R T S  

If you need your child’s passport expedited, you can pay a $60 expediting fee when you apply in person, as well as overnight delivery fees to have your passport mailed to you. Expedited passports are supposed to arrive within 2-3 weeks, but I’ve heard that many people get their passport in under 2 weeks here in New York.

E X P E D I T E D  P A S S P O R T S  (  F R O M  A  P A S S P O R T  A G E N C Y  )

If you have less than 2 weeks until your departure or need a visa within 4 weeks, you can go to your local Passport Agency by appointment only. You can only apply at an agency if you have less than 2 weeks until your departure or need a visa within 4 weeks. Some agencies, like the local New York office, require proof of travel. Most people report getting their passports the same day at our local office, and it’s one of the busiest locations in the US. While this would have been a viable option for us, unfortunately the first appointment we were able to get was when we’d already be in Los Angeles.

E X P E D I T E D  P A S S P O R T S  (  U S I N G  A N  E X P E D I T I N G  S E R V I C E  )

Since we weren’t able to obtain an appointment at our local Passport Agency in time for our trip, we had to use an expediting service. Passport expediting services can get you a passport in as little as 24 hours. Because we’d used It’s Easy in the past for our passports, we used them again for Charlie and Olive’s passports. There are plenty of other services out there, but this one is the most highly regarded one in New York. Their fees are as follows:

9+ Day Passport – $79.00
6-8 Day Passport – $129.00
3-5 Day Passport – $179.00
24-48 Hours Passport – $249.00

In order to use an expediting service, we still had to go to an approved passport acceptance facility. In our case, it was the local library. Mr. Bee and I went with Charlie and Olive and they had us sign our applications there, pay the fees by check or money order, provide all the requisite documentation, and swear that all the information we provided was true. They then sealed all the documents for us to give to the expediting service. All of us did not have to be present when dropping off the sealed envelope to the expediting service.

The total fees we paid were:

$160 to the State Dept. (2 passport applications)
$120 to the State Dept. (2 expediting fees)
$25 to the State Dept. (execution fee — we only had to pay this once for both applications)
$358 to It’s Easy Expediting Service (3-5 day expediting service fee)

$663 Total

It ended up costing us an additional $358 to use an expediting service. But because I couldn’t get an appointment at our local passport agency where we would have been able to get passports the same day until after we left for Los Angeles, our only other option was to drive to another passport agency in Connecticut. Factoring in the cost of renting a car and taking Charlie and Olive with us for an entire day just wasn’t worth the little money we’d save.

So there you have it! Applying for a passport isn’t a complicated process when you don’t have to get it expedited. But if you do have to get it expedited, now you know that you can either get an appointment at your local passport agency *only* if you’re traveling within two weeks, or you can use a passport expediting service.

Does your LO have a passport? Was it easy getting one?