NEW YORK — The U.S. State Department expects 20.5 million applications for new and renewed passports this year, and that will be a record number.
The busy year is no surprise. Adult U.S. passports must be renewed every 10 years, and it was 10 years ago that a new law went into effect requiring passports for Americans traveling to Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean. That new law resulted in a surge of passport requests in 2007, along with extraordinary delays that stretched into months for some individuals.
This year, the State Department said it is beating promised turnaround times of six to eight weeks for processing passports.
“In 2007, it was not a good situation,” Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant secretary for passport services, said in an interview. “We did a lot of post-mortem discussions and have spent 10 years getting ready for this and addressing all the challenges we expected to come. We are extremely busy but I am pleased to say that we are so far, knock wood, staying well ahead of the curve.”
