Eric L Martin | Chubby Diaries
If you are looking to travel internationally sometime in the near future, you might want to check to see if your passport needs renewal. The U.S. State Department made severe cut backs with concerns to passport services. With the country being shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic from mid-March thru early June, passport services were only made for life-or-death emergencies. Passport agencies are slowly reopening, but the State Department is currently not full capacity, which means those applying for a new passport or renewing will still experience some delays.
“We’ve gotten through essentially all of the backlog work, and now we’re getting back to a regular rhythm,” Ian Brownlee, the principal deputy in Consular Affairs, said during a video chat on the future of international travel hosted on the travel website The Points Guy. “If you’re thinking of traveling nine months out, why not apply now? The thing’s good for 10 years.”
Employees from the State Department have been working from home with backlogs of request. One concerned customer asked the U.S. State Department on twitter if passports will be processed in a timely manner:
The State Department says it currently takes about 10 weeks to process a passport, from application to delivery in the mail. That’s up from the six to eight weeks it typically took before the pandemic, as reported in The Washington Post.
Eric L. Martin Chubby Diaries Travel Analyst. He writes on the latest Travel News and much more.
