Americans needing travel documents increasingly have digital options that can make the process faster and easier.
As of this week, renewing a passport no longer requires mailing in an application, but can be done with a click of a button. And in the last few months, more states have started issuing mobile driver’s licenses, which can be stored on a phone.
Here’s what travelers should know.
You can now renew your passport online.
Renewing a passport will no longer require you to mail in an old passport and send a check to the State Department, or schedule a visit to a passport agency. Now, many U.S. passport holders can renew online and pay by credit or debit card. Eligible applicants must be 25 or older, be renewing a passport issued between 2009 and 2015, and live in a U.S. state or territory. Applicants will also have to upload a digital passport photo. You must have your old passport in your possession.
It’s unclear if the online option will speed up passport processing, which the State Department advertises as generally taking six to eight weeks. (The State Department said in a news release on Wednesday that routine passport processing is currently well under this time frame.)
More states have issued mobile driver’s licenses, which are accepted at select airports.
Mobile driver’s licenses have proliferated; more than a dozen states, including California and Hawaii, now offer them. Other states say their versions are coming, among them Montana, New Mexico and West Virginia.
Some of these digital IDs can be downloaded to Apple or Google Wallets, while others, like New York State’s mobile license, require you to download an app. For IDs stored in Apple Wallet, travelers can even show a license using an Apple Watch.
The Transportation Security Administration has a list of which state mobile driver’s licenses it accepts and where they are accepted. At T.S.A. security checkpoints, digital ID readers scan these mobile licenses.
The T.S.A. still encourages travelers to bring their physical IDs, in case a digital ID can’t be verified.
Real ID goes into effect on May 25, but it may take far longer for the program to be fully enforced.
After more than 15 years’ worth of delays, the deadline for Real ID, a security-enhanced driver’s license with higher standards for issuance, is in sight. The Department of Homeland Security says that travelers who want to use their driver’s licenses for domestic travel should update them by May 25, 2025. Real IDs are marked with a star — generally gold or black — and vary in appearance by state.
However, the T.S.A. recently proposed a rule to allow for a two-year transition to full enforcement of Real ID, saying that as of January, only about 56 percent of U.S. driver’s licenses were Real ID-compliant.
In the future: A digital ID from a passport?
Google announced that it would soon begin a test allowing some Android users to create digital IDs from their passports. These could be used at the same airports where the T.S.A. accepts mobile driver’s licenses, but it’s unclear how soon they could start being rolled out and how they would work for international travel.
The post Travel Docs Update: Online Passport Renewal and Digital Driver’s Licenses appeared first on New York Times.
