Everything To Know About Passport Renewals

by erin on November 3, 2010

Passports are what make seeing the world possible. They are what grants us access to all the different people, cultures, and places of the Earth. Passports are generally sources of anxiety, but since they have moved to the internet, services like passport renewals have become much easier to do.

Passport renewal is for someone who has a passport that has expired. In order to understand why you might need a passport replacement, it’s important to know what sort of circumstances warrant the need to renew. For those age 18 or older, a passport is valid for ten years. Once this ten years is up, then you need to get a passport renewal.

Passports for children, on the other hand, are only valid for five years. There are exceptions, however, once the child starts to get near the age of 18. If you’re under 16 years old and your passport has expired, you need to renew a child passport. However, if you’re 16 years or older, than you need to apply for a new adult passport.

So under these special considerations, you can decide what sort of circumstance that you’re in for passport renewal. If you’re 16 or over, you need to renew your passport every ten years. If you’re under the age of of 16, then, when you get a new passport, it needs to be a renewed child passport.

The renewing process is pain-free. The first step of the process is finding a website that is safe to renew your passports with. Having switched to the internet, getting a passport means never having to wait in a long line at the post office and having to fill out a confusing form and then having to wait for months and months for your passport. It’s all online.

Being sure you’re on a completely secure site is vitally important. Just think: applying for a passport requires a social security number, a credit card number, and other very sensitive information. Herein lies another problem with the standard passport process. Passports are delivered in the mail, and mailboxes are very easy to steal from. So if you have no idea when your passport will reach you – as the time span is often very large – someone could steal your passport, and you wouldn’t even know for potentially many months.

You want to make sure you can totally rely on the passport sites you’re using. You can do this by doing a couple small visual tests. Start by simply judging how the page looks. Make sure it looks like a valid passport site. Next, look for a way you can contact the site – either a phone number or a mailing address. The final – and probably most important – step is looking for authentic seals of security. These little “badges” are put on a page to prove they’re secure. “Verified by Visa,” “McAfee Secure,” and “Authorize.Net Verified Merchant” are a few, but there are many, many more.

After you’ve made sure the site is safe, the process can start. First decide and pick what sort of service you will need. All of these services are available on this one secure site, meaning you can do all of your passport shopping in one place. Then pick when you’d like it delivered, check out, and then you’re completely done. You can be sure your new USA passport will be in your hands by your chosen date.

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