Online passport renewal options
LEXINGTON, Ky. (ABC36 NEWS NOW) — Renewing your passport can seem like a hassle, with having to get your photo taken, needing many documents and needing to go to the post office.
Now there is testing for a simpler way to renew.
Right now the online passport renewal is still in the testing phase and there are a few requirements to renew online and a few restrictions.
“To renew it online, basically you have to be a U.S. citizen and you have to be 25 or older,” said AAA agent Kelly Connor. “You can’t do it if anything on the passport has changed like your age, gender, maybe you got married. You can’t do it then.”
There are other restrictions as well, including your passport must have been issued for a ten-year period. And you should be able to upload a digital passport picture.
The website opens at midday each day, and then closes once the system has reached its daily limit. This is to monitor how well the system works.
And the website will be down this weekend to check how things are going.
It is unclear when the trial period will end.
Connor says the hope is to make renewing easier for people, especially in day in age where so many things are done online.
She believes it is a great idea and convenient.
“They can just do it while sitting at their computer at home, get it done just like paying a bill and then on their way they go,” said Connor.
The online renewal does not speed up the process time of receiving your passport, so it will still take about eight weeks for your passport to come in.
Connor also says people should not have concerns on how secure it is.
“I just think as long as it’s secure, I think that’s the biggest thing that people want to know that their passport is secure and it’s going to come to them in the mail,” said Connor. “But we do that system already, as far as when it’s shipped to us it comes to our home address. So it’s safe, you know, and so doing it online just makes it a lot easier.”
Conner says you can always stop by AAA if you are having trouble renewing your passport.
You can find more information about the online renewal option by clicking here.
