US passport cost and arrival date, 2026

What you pay, in the order you pay it

The fee depends on four things the State Department names on its fee page: your age, the form, the document and the speed. Age decides the price of a book: $130 from 16 years old, $100 under 16. The form decides whether a second payment exists. Form DS-11, signed in front of an acceptance agent, carries the $35 execution fee; Form DS-82, mailed by an eligible adult, does not; online renewal does not either. The document changes the base: $30 for an adult card, $160 for book and card together, which is $0 cheaper than applying for the two separately and also avoids a second execution fee. Speed comes last and is optional: $60 to expedite, $26.87 to have the finished book sent back in 1 to 3 days.

The calculator above does that addition in that order and splits the result between the people you actually pay. For a first adult book, the check or money order made out to “U.S. Department of State” is $130 and the facility collects $35. Add expedited service and 1-3 day delivery and the check becomes $216.87 while the facility fee stays the same. That split matters at the counter: a single check for $251.87 is the most common reason an application gets sent back for incorrect fees.

Why the 2026 numbers are different from what you may have read

The application fees themselves did not move in 2026. They are written in the federal fee schedule, 22 CFR 22.1, as $50 for application services plus an $80 security surcharge for an adult book, which is where $130 comes from. What changed is the return delivery fee, which the State Department charges per application and prints on its fee chart. It was $22.05 on the February 2026 chart and is $26.87 on the October 2026 edition. Many guides still print the older figure, or one even older, and a check written for the wrong total delays the application.

Processing times move more often than fees. The page the State Department updated on October 5, 2026 gives 4 to 6 weeks for routine service. During the backlog of past years the same page said much longer, and articles from that time still rank. This site reads the official page on a schedule; when it changes, the new range goes into the calculator and a notice is opened for review the same day, so the dates you get here come from the current page.

How the arrival date is worked out

A passport travels three legs, and the State Department publishes a limit for each. Your application goes to a processing center by mail, which can take up to 2 weeks; online renewals skip that leg. The center processes it in the published range. The finished passport comes back by mail, up to 2 weeks, or in 1 to 3 days if you paid for faster delivery; cards always travel by First Class Mail. The calculator gives you two dates. The early one assumes mail takes no time at all and processing hits the short end. The late one adds both mail legs at their published maximum to the long end of processing. For routine service that is 70 days, about 10 weeks; for expedited service with 1-3 day delivery it is 38 days.

Then it compares the late date with your departure. If even the slowest published path arrives before you leave, routine is enough. If only the fast end works, the result says it is tight, which is the case where paying $60 buys certainty. The official rules for choosing a service follow your travel date too: routine if you travel in 6 weeks or more, expedited inside 6 weeks, and an appointment at one of the 26 passport agencies and centers once you are within 14 days of travel, or 28 days if you also need a foreign visa.

Which form you file decides most of the cost

Most adults who held a passport before can renew without a facility visit, and that alone saves $35. By mail, Form DS-82 works if the passport was issued in the last 15 years, when you were 16 or older, is undamaged and was never reported lost, and you still use the same name or can show the legal document that changed it. Online renewal is narrower: it adds the age of 25, a one-year window before expiry and a five-year window after, and 6 weeks without travel, because online applications cannot be expedited. The renewal checker applies these rules one by one and names the one that blocks you.

Children never renew. A child under 16 gets a passport valid for 5 years, and the next one is a new DS-11 in person, with both parents present or the consent form DS-3053. Teenagers aged 16 and 17 pay the adult fee and get a 10-year passport, but still apply in person the first time. A lost or stolen passport is replaced with a new DS-11 too, at the full first-time price, after you report it.

Where the application goes

The State Department counts more than 7,500 acceptance facilities: post offices, clerks of court, county offices and public libraries. They accept new applications and children’s applications, not renewals. The Consular Affairs location list behind its search tool holds 14,321 entries, and the table on where to apply counts them by state and type. Passport agencies are different: run by the State Department, by appointment only, for travel within 14 days, always with the $60 expedite fee. In fiscal year 2024 the Department issued 24,515,786 passports, and 169,915,821 were in circulation, which is why its busy season from late winter into summer is felt everywhere.

A worked example, from the counter to the mailbox

Take an adult who has never held a passport, applies at a post office on a Monday in mid-October for a book and card together, and has a flight in late January. The calculator asks for no expediting: the State Department check is $160, the facility collects $35, and the routine window ends 70 days later, well before the trip. Move the flight to early December and the same application turns tight, because the slow end of routine service plus two mail legs reaches past the departure. The result then tells you to expedite, which adds $60 to the check, and suggests the $26.87 return delivery, which cuts up to two weeks off the last leg. Each change you make is reflected in the address bar, so the link you copy reopens exactly this case for someone else in the family.

What this calculator does not count

Two photos are not included because their price depends on where you take them. Faster mail from the facility to the State Department, Priority Mail Express, is paid at the facility at a price that varies by location, so it is left out. A file search, $150, only applies when you cannot present proof of citizenship and is a separate switch. A private expediter or courier charges its own fee on top of all of this; the government fees do not change because a company carries your application, and the State Department refunds only its own $60 expedite fee, never a courier’s.

Before you book the trip: validity at your destination

Having a passport is not always enough. Peru, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Honduras, Thailand and China want six months left after you arrive, Vietnam and the Philippines six months after you leave, India six months after the visa application, and the Schengen countries three months after you leave the area. Mexico and Canada only ask for a valid document, and accept a passport card at land crossings. The validity checker applies the rule of 26 destinations to your expiration date, quotes the State Department’s country page word for word, and tells you the last day to mail a renewal that will come back in time.