Washington—Attention world travelers: Check your passports, now.
The State Department is taking longer than usual to issue new U.S. passports, and to renew existing passports, because record numbers of Americans are going overseas.
“Americans are traveling again after COVID,” Andres Rodriguez, lead community relations officer for passport services at the State Department, said in an interview.
In just the recent winter months, the department was sometimes processing as many as 500,000 passports a week, including new requests and renewals. That number is unprecedented, Rodriguez said. “It’s been the busiest year ever for passport issuances,” he added.
As wonderful as renewed wanderlust may feel for U.S. citizens, the wave of new applications has strained the thousands of State Department employees who must process them….