Renew your passport, broken into 6 small steps
Passport renewals are a classic "I'll do it before the trip" task, and processing can take weeks or months.
Rules, forms and fees change and depend on your country, so the first real step is finding the current official instructions. After that, it's a short checklist.
Start here · under 2 minutes
Find your passport and check the expiration date.
Under two minutes. Many countries require it to be valid for months after your trip.
The rest of the steps
- Step 2:
Open your government's official passport website.
Only the official site. Check whether you can renew online or by mail.
- Step 3:
Download or start the correct form.
Fill in the easy parts first: name, address, birthdate.
- Step 4:
Get a passport photo.
Pharmacies and shipping stores often take them. Check the photo rules on the official site.
- Step 5:
Pay the fee and submit.
Online or by mail. Keep a copy of everything you send.
- Step 6:
Write down the tracking or application number.
And put a reminder to check the status in a few weeks.
Why this one stalls
It's a bureaucratic task with no deadline until there suddenly is one, and the instructions are long.
If you get stuck
Do steps 1 and 2 today, even if you're not traveling soon. Knowing your expiration date takes away the risk of a surprise.
What “done” looks like
Application submitted and the tracking number saved.
These steps follow the same rules as the method in our task breakdown guide: the first step is physical and takes under two minutes, and every step after it is something you can see yourself doing. Got a head full of other things too? Start with a brain dump.