The U.S. Department of State issued a note on December 28 stating that citizens who meet specific criteria will be able to return to their home country before March 31, 2022 with expired passports.
However, there are many conditions that apply.
On the one hand, not all overdue U.S. passports will be acceptable as a return document. This exemption applies to U.S. citizens who are currently abroad and returning to the United States (who do not leave the country and go elsewhere) whose passports expired after January 1. 2020.
Also, only certain types of passports are relevant. The expired document in question must have been an original 10-year passport, with the exception of people under the age of 15 when the passport was issued, because it is a five-year passport.
These passports must be unaltered and in the possession of the owner.
Americans who meet this criterion may return to the United States or U.S. territory until the end of March 2022. Short stops are allowed, as some destinations do not have direct flights back to the United States.
This is the second major passport news announced this week.
“The fare increase is necessary to ensure that we continue to produce one of the safest identity and travel documents in the world,” the State Department wrote in a tweet.
One of the likely reasons for this expired passport amnesty is the delay in pandemic renewals. The State Department website advises Americans to expect a passport renewal to take between eight and 11 weeks, although people may pay a $ 60 fee to expedite the process.
That said, government officials have admitted that the wait for the past two years has been longer than usual.
At the time, it was estimated that there were between 1.5 and 2 million pending passport applications.
These documents, however, will only be valid for one-way travel back to the United States, so people who obtain these emergency passports will need to follow the usual procedure to obtain a new passport later.
