Atlanta

Need a new passport? State department warns it could take up to four months

ATLANTA — Give yourself plenty of time to apply for a new passport because it could take months to get a new one.

Ian Coates and his family are planning a trip to the Dominican Republic. He’s glad he planned ahead and applied for a passport well in advance.

“With the pandemic coming to an end, we decided to try and take a vacation,” Coates told Channel 2′s Dave Huddleston.

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Coates is a new U.S. citizen from Scotland. He applied for a passport hoping it would arrive in the normal four to six weeks. The State Department says, however, it could take three times as long, up to 18 weeks, to get your passport.

The passport office blames the U.S. Post Office for the delay.

If you can afford the extra expense, you can pay an extra $60 to expedite the process and another $17.56 for express mail. That’s on top of the $110 passport application fee.

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So if you’re like Coates and want to get your passport in two months, it’ll cost you nearly $200. He said he is lucky his passport arrived just in time.

“It was stressful, right, but we’re in a lucky situation, this was just for vacation. There are some people with family overseas and they just can’t get to see them,” Coates said.

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There does not appear to be any update on when the process will go back to less than 10 weeks.

Channel 2 Action News reached out to the U.S. Post Office, but are still awaiting a response.

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