How to Get a Passport in Less Than 1 Week

If you have landed on this page and need to know how to get a passport in less than 1 week or how to get a passport in 24 hours, I am here to help. I am sorry about the stress you are likely experiencing right now. It. Sucks. My husband and I recently went through this before our trip to Iceland, and I’m here to tell you how we ended up getting an urgent passport THE DAY BEFORE our family trip. 

I can’t make any promises. We were ready to give up, and I was going to go on our family trip to Iceland by myself. It’s not easy. It requires a lot of luck and flexibility. And, again, I’m sorry this is happening to you. I’ll give you your options and a prayer.

** Of note, this post does not apply to you if an immediate family member is dying, has died, or has a life-threatening emergency internationally. You will follow a different process and will more easily be able to obtain a passport.  **

Reasons you may need to get a passport in less than 1 week:

• You lost your passport.
• You didn’t realize the passport requirements in the country you’re traveling to. (A lot of countries require your passport to be valid for 3-6 months after your return date.)
• Your passport is fully expired.
• You planned an epic trip for 3 days from now and need a new passport.
• You had a child, totally forgot that they need a passport when traveling abroad, and now need one ASAP for your family trip.

For us, my husband’s passport expired in 2 months. Iceland requires your passport to be valid for 3 months after your return date. We realized this 4 days before our first international trip with our toddler (cue wanting to vomit). I did look into whether or not they’d still let us board the plane with his soon-to-expire passport, and the resounding answer I received was NO.

This left us with 4 days to get a passport. It was SO STRESSFUL. And honestly, if you have the option to reschedule your trip, you might want to do that. We looked into rescheduling, but it wasn’t a possibility due to our accommodations, unable to receive flight refunds, etc. We did manage to get a passport and have a phenomenal trip – but it felt like a miracle.

Here is your best chance – how to get a passport in less than 1 week:

If you need a passport for international travel within 14 calendar days, you need an Urgent Passport appointment with a US Passport Agency. This is different than applying for a passport at your local post office. There are only certain offices that process these, and there aren’t locations in every state.

You NEED an appointment at a passport center.

You can only make an appointment by calling 1-877-487-2778.  If you are deaf or hard of hearing, call 1-888-874-7793 for TDD/TTY teletype services. You can’t transfer appointments to someone else.

This is it. This is how you get a passport in less than 1 week. Calling that phone number is your job now.

Here it is again: 1-877-487-2778

It is extremely difficult to get one of these appointments. Almost as difficult as getting Taylor Swift tickets. Everyone who calls is desperate, but they can only offer you an appointment if there’s one available, which doesn’t seem to happen often. Please be nice to whoever you speak to; they can’t make appointments appear for you.

I highly recommend calling right when the offices open at 8am EST for your best chance of an appointment.

Then call over and over and over and over. If there isn’t an appointment available, do not give up. Keep calling because appointments do sporadically open up. If you want to get your passport in time for your trip, this is just what you have to do.

I also recommend completely freeing up your schedule. If an appointment opens up anywhere in the US that you MIGHT make it to, take the appointment and figure out the logistics later. Be willing to fly to a different state.

What to Bring to Your Appointment:

• All of your passport stuff
• The DS-11 form
• Evidence of US citizenship (a valid passport, birth certificate, or Certificate of Naturalization or Citizenship) – bring both an original and a copy
• A current ID (likely your passport or a drivers license) – bring the original and a copy
• A passport photo
• A way to pay your passport fees (exact cash amount, credit card, check, money order)
• You will also need to bring a printed copy of your flight info to prove that you need an urgent passport.

If you make an appointment and can’t make it, please call and cancel. It will free up an urgent appointment for someone else.

Appointments are free. If you are asked to pay a fee, you have reached a fraudulent line.

Here are some posts you can read while you are on hold with the passport line: Tips for Iceland Travel with a Toddler, How to Canoe Camp in Voyageurs National Park, and Advice for Travel Nurses.

Hi, thanks for visiting my blog 🙂 Check out more of my posts after you’ve read this one!

How we managed to get a passport in less than 1 week:

We called at least 50 times. For days. Sometimes we’d reach a human, and they’d say there were no available appointments in the United States. Sometimes it would just hang up. Other times we’d be on hold for ages only to be told (again) that there were no appointments.

On 3 separate occasions, my husband was told there was an available appointment. We’re not entirely sure why, a cancellation maybe? But this is nationwide. One of the appointments was in Puerto Rico, and my husband would not have made it there in time. One was in California while I was at work, and we didn’t have childcare. The last one was in El Paso, Texas the day before our trip. My husband accepted the appointment time, immediately booked a flight from Denver to El Paso, left for the airport right away, and was 30 minutes late to his appointment. He had an appointment, though, so they let him in.

We were so lucky.

Can you get a walk-in appointment at a passport agency?

Most (if not all) passport agencies do not allow walk-ins. My husband tried to go to the Denver Passport Office without an appointment, and there were 4 security guards there to only let people in who had an appointment that day.

If you google or use yelp to look up your local passport office, it’s worth reading the comments to see if anyone has been able to get a walk-in appointment. But the websites say do not show up without a confirmed appointment.

Should you contact your state representative for an urgent passport appointment?

Yes it’s worth a shot, but they can’t make an appointment appear either. They do have access to the available appointments quicker than the passport line you can call, but they weren’t able to do anything special for us.

One more possibly helpful option – Expedited services:

There are some expedited passport services that claim they can get you a passport in a few days. If you have the money (they’re expensive), these might be worth it to you. But if you need one same-day, they aren’t that fast. I’ve read that they take a week to process. They’re basically a middle man for what I’m telling you to do in this post – they will deliver your stuff to a passport agency and then get your passport to you when it’s processed.

Rushmypassport says they can get your passport in 1 week, but it’s $899. And you won’t have it if your trip is in a few days.

What to do once you have an Urgent Passport Appointment:

You will receive a confirmation email about your appointment.

Figure out how to get to your appointment, and bring all of the required documents (as listed above).

You will receive your passport in the same day (or maybe next day if it’s a late appointment) during normal business hours. They’ll give you a range time of when to come back for it. The whole process took 4.5 hours for my husband from the time he arrived to when he received his passport.

If you need to cancel your appointment, forward your confirmation email to [email protected] with “Cancel my appointment” in the subject line.

Good luck on getting your urgent passport in less than 1 week.

Seriously. It’s not easy, and it’s super stressful right before a trip that you might have had planned for a long time. I wish you luck. And if you aren’t able to get a passport, I hope you’re able to rebook your trip for a different time.

Happy Traveling!

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