Mailing Your Passport Renewal Application Could Save You Money On Fees

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Is it time for you to renew your passport? Keep those international adventures coming and start the process of getting a brand new document with lots of blank pages just begging to be stamped. However, one simple trick could save you a little bit of money when you go to renew your I.D.

It costs $110 to renew your passport. But there’s also an “execution fee.” It’s the “recovery of the costs to the U.S. government of providing the consular service,” according to the U.S. Department of State. (Not sure why that’s not just part of the entire application’s hundred bucks and change, TBH.) Starting in April, that execution fee will increase from $25 to $35, but you can get around paying the extra money by mailing your application.

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Instead of going to your local post office or DMV, do it the old-fashioned, snail-mail way. All you have to do is fill out a DS-82 form and send in your current passport, new photo and a check for the cost of the application. Everything gets mailed to a national passport processing center. You can find the closest one to you on the state department website.

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There is some fine print involved with renewing a passport by mail. Your current passport can’t be damaged. You can’t have changed your name since getting the passport (so if you took your spouse’s name or changed yours for any reason, you can’t mail it). And you have to have received your current passport when you were age 16 or older.