When to renew your passport
A passport stops being useful for many trips months before the date printed on it. The renewal calendar works back from that date.
Checked by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
2026 rules
Your renewal calendar
Online renewal opens
December 17, 2026
| Too short for 6-month countries from | June 17, 2027 |
| Mail a routine renewal by | April 8, 2027 |
| Online renewal closes | December 16, 2032 |
A U.S. passport is legally valid until its expiration date, but many destinations stop accepting it earlier: Peru, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Honduras, Thailand and China want six months left after arrival, Vietnam six months after the stay, and the Schengen countries three months after you leave. In practice, the last useful day for international travel is often six months before expiry. Take a book that expires on March 15, 2028: from September 15, 2027 it is too short for six-month countries, and from December 15, 2027 for a Schengen trip. Online renewal opens one year before expiry, on March 15, 2027, and stays open until March 14, 2033. To be safe for a six-month country with routine service and mail both ways, a renewal should be mailed by July 7, 2027. The fee is the same whenever you renew: $130 for a book by mail or online.
The date printed in the passport is not the date that matters
Your passport has three practical end dates. The first is six months before expiry, when it stops working for the countries that count six months from arrival. The second is three months before expiry, roughly when it fails the Schengen rule for a short trip. The third is the expiration date itself, after which it is useless for travel. The mini-calendar above computes all of them for your passport, along with the opening and closing dates of online renewal.
The windows of each renewal route
By mail on Form DS-82, an eligible adult can renew at any time, early or late, as long as the passport was issued within the last 15 years, at 16 or older. Online renewal is narrower in time: it opens 1 year before expiry and closes 5 years after. For a book expiring on March 15, 2028, the online window runs from March 15, 2027 to March 14, 2033. Outside it, the mail route is the only renewal, and after the 15-year mark, a new application in person is required.
A worked calendar
Take that same book, expiring on March 15, 2028. It becomes too short for Thailand or Peru on September 15, 2027, and for a two-week trip to France around December 15, 2027. If the next trip is to a six-month country, a routine renewal mailed by July 7, 2027 returns before the passport crosses that line, even with 70 days of mail and processing. Mailing it in the quiet season of October to December, when the State Department says demand is lower, adds margin.
When does your passport expire?
Expires on
October 17, 2028
| Validity | 10 years |
| How to renew | By mail (DS-82), online if 25+ |
Early renewal costs validity, not money
The fee does not depend on timing: $130 for a book, $30 for a card. What early renewal costs is the time left on the old passport, because the new one counts 10 years from its own issue date. For someone who only travels to Mexico or Canada, using the passport to the last day can make sense. For someone who flies to Asia or the Gulf, the final six months were never usable, so renewing about nine months before expiry loses little.
Plan around trips, not around the expiry
A renewal by mail takes the passport out of your hands for up to 70 days; an online renewal cancels it on submission. Either way, you need a window without international travel. Put the renewal in a gap between trips, ideally six weeks or more, which also satisfies the online rule of no travel for 6 weeks.
Signals that it is time
Three situations call for renewing now rather than later. A trip already booked to a six-month country whose arrival date is less than six months before expiry. Visa pages close to full, since some destinations, such as Vietnam and Türkiye, need blank pages or space for stamps. And a name change you want reflected in the passport, which online renewal cannot handle.
Children are a separate calendar
Passports for children under 16 last five years and cannot be renewed: each one is a new application in person with both parents’ consent. Their six-month cliff arrives at four and a half years. Families often find the child’s passport is the one that blocks a trip, so check those dates first with the validity checker.