A friend of mine almost missed her own sister’s wedding abroad last year, and her passport wasn’t expired. It had four months left on it. The airline agent at check in looked at the date, looked at her, and called a supervisor. She got on the plane after a very long 20 minutes, but she was lucky. If her trip had been to a country with strict rules, she’d have been watching the wedding on FaceTime.
That’s why I think the most common passport renewal advice, “check your expiration date,” is incomplete. The date that matters isn’t when your passport expires. It’s six months before that, because a lot of the world treats a passport with less than six months left as already too short. If you have a summer trip on the calendar, early March is the right time to sort this out, while routine processing still fits comfortably before you leave.
Your passport renewal deadline is probably earlier than the expiration date
The State Department’s own international travel checklist warns that some countries “require that your passport be valid for at least 6 more months after your travel dates.” Rules vary by country, and some only require three months, but airlines tend to enforce the strictest reading because they’re the ones who pay to fly you home if you’re turned away.
So do the math on your own trip right now. Say you’re flying out on July 15 and your passport expires on November 30. That feels fine, since November is months after July. But add six months to your travel date and you get January 15 of next year. Your passport expires about six weeks before that line. For any destination using the six month rule, your passport is effectively expired for this trip, and the deadline for fixing it isn’t November. It’s now.
My rule of thumb is to renew any passport with less than a year left whenever I’m booking an international trip. It costs the same either way, and it saves me from doing this math under pressure.
Passport processing times are reasonable right now, and that won’t last
Here’s the good news. As of last fall, the State Department estimated routine processing at about four to six weeks and expedited service at about two to three weeks, according to The Points Guy’s tracker. That’s far better than the waits of 2022 and 2023, when routine service ran months long.
But demand keeps climbing. The State Department issued a record of about 24.5 million passports in fiscal year 2024, the third record year in a row, KSAT reported. And the busiest season for applications is spring, when everybody with a summer trip has the same realization at the same time. Those four to six weeks are an estimate, and they don’t include mailing time on either end. Applying in early March leaves room for a slow week or a lost envelope. Applying in late May does not.
Renew your passport online if you qualify
The best change in years is the online renewal system, which fully launched in September 2024. In its first stretch, more than a million Americans used it. You fill out the form, upload a photo, and pay on the State Department’s website, and you never touch an envelope.
You’re eligible if you’re at least 25 and your most recent passport meets the usual renewal requirements. The big catch is timing: you can’t use the online system if you’re traveling within six weeks. That’s one more reason to do this in March rather than June. Also note that when you renew online, your old passport is canceled once you submit, so don’t do it the week before a trip with the old one.
If you don’t qualify for online renewal, the mail in renewal form still works. It just adds the time it takes your application to get to the processing center, so send it with tracking and keep a photo of every page you mailed. Children’s passports can’t be renewed online or by mail at all, since kids under 16 have to apply in person with a parent, which means booking an appointment at a post office or library acceptance facility. In spring those appointments fill up weeks out.
Waiting costs you about $82, plus the stress
The cost comparison is what finally gets people moving. An adult passport book renewal is $130. If you renew in March with routine service, that’s the whole bill, and you can choose standard return shipping at no extra charge.
Now say you wait until late May and realize your passport fails the six month test for a July trip. You’ll want expedited service, which is an extra $60, and one to two day return delivery, which is $22.05. That’s $130 plus $60 plus $22.05, or $212.05. Waiting cost you $82.05, and that’s the best case. If expedited service isn’t fast enough, you’re looking for an urgent appointment at a passport agency, which can mean taking time off work and traveling to another city.
For $82, I’d rather have a nice dinner on the trip.
Check the new rules where you’re going
Passports aren’t the only paperwork changing. Europe began rolling out its Entry/Exit System last October, which registers non EU travelers’ fingerprints and photos at the border instead of stamping passports, so your first arrival in a Schengen country may take a little longer than you remember. Some countries also require an electronic travel authorization before you board. And if a domestic trip is part of your summer, remember that TSA has required a REAL ID compliant license since May 7, 2025, so a valid passport doubles as your backup ID at the airport. The State Department’s checklist links to entry requirements for each destination, and it’s worth five minutes for every country on your itinerary, including the ones you’re only connecting through.
If Paris is on your list this year, I wrote an older guide to exploring Paris that covers the neighborhoods I always go back to.
Make your passport renewal this weekend’s errand
This is the most boring travel task there is, and it’s the one that can cancel a trip outright. So here’s my suggestion for this weekend. Pull out every passport in your house, including your partner’s and your kids’. Write down each expiration date, then subtract six months. If any of those adjusted dates falls before the end of your summer travel, start the passport renewal now, online if you can.
My friend renewed hers the week she got home from that wedding. She says it was the least romantic part of the whole trip and the most useful.