It’s Possible To Obtain An Overnight Passport

by erin on April 29, 2010

Nowadays, the global economy means more people than ever before are traveling on last-minute business to parts of the world far away from home. Unfortunately, some people are stymied in their travel quest because of expired passports or because they’ve never had a passport and now need one in a hurry. They should take heart, though, in knowing that it’s possible to obtain an overnight passport with a little work.

First off, understand that doing the things necessary to get a passport overnight, meaning to and from a regional passport service center (a number of them exist throughout the nation), will require some effort on the part of the applicant. Much of this can be short-circuited, however, if an applicant is willing to pay the additional fees necessary to have a passport expediting service take care of the matter.

In this regard, fees can run anywhere from $200 to $600, so expect to put out a fair amount of money to have a company handle almost everything. However, the State Department – the administrator for, and issuer of, all US passports – has a mechanism by which a person can do the legwork himself and possibly obtain a passport overnight.

To do so, it’ll first of all be necessary to actually go to any one of the centers located around the country. There are several on each coast and a number of them in the Midwest, with Chicago, Illinois, having a large center, in addition to Los Angeles and Washington DC. Just check the passport section of the State Department website for the location of other centers.

The single most important thing to remember, when it comes to overnight passports that are going to be obtained on one’s own, is that they just won’t happen if a person shows up at a center without an appointment. As well, it can be very difficult to obtain such a passport if proofs of citizenship and identity aren’t supplied, as well as passport photos. No center takes these photos, by the way.

Usually, in order to obtain a passport on the next day, one can always try to overnight mail the application plus the passport fees plus the extra $60 expediting fee to a US government passport agency or regional center. However, trusting that the passport application can be turned around in time to have it back the next day – when delivered next-day mail, on top of it – may be too much to hope for.

That’s why going with an expediting service or traveling in person to a processing center is the way to go. The State Department website has a toll-free number to set up an appointment, and one should be made for as early in the day as is practicable. That’s because it can take all day to walk the paperwork through and then receive the passport. At minimum, it’s going to cost at least $300 to bring it all together.

Getting an overnight pass port, once one understands the mechanism for doing so, isn’t actually all that difficult. But, the cost of travel to a center and then the fees paid for processing, expediting and other miscellanea, such as passport photos, meals, rental car and such, can make for an expensive proposition. This is why most people who need one overnight usually choose to work with an expediting service.

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