Applying for a passport is not as easy as it sounds. It’s easy to make mistakes on the paperwork, and even a small mistake can delay your application. Of course, with a private expediting company tracking your order, we can minimize these delays and often catch mistakes before they happen. However, if getting your passport as quickly as possible is important to you, we encourage you to review the top 10 causes of passport processing delays:
The Top 10 Reasons For Delays in Getting Your Passport
1. Birth Certificate is not State Issued with a raised seal. If you are unsure if your birth certificate will be accepted, order a certified long form birth certificate from office of vital records in the area where you were born, or visit www.vitalchek.com.
2. Documents were not “sealed”. All applicants for a new passport must appear in person at a post office or county clerks office to have their documents “sealed”.
3. There are no bar codes on the application. Application forms DS-11, and DS-82 require bar codes.
4. DS-82 was not signed. You must sign the second page of the passport renewal application.
5. ID is too recent. If your govt. issued ID was issued less than six months ago, you must submit additional forms of ID. To assist you, here are some examples of acceptable forms of ID.
6. Incorrect Shipping. All packages must be shipped to our office using FedEx.
7. The check was written for an incorrect amount. Verify the correct amount with us, and look over these examples of correctly made out checks before you send yours in.
8. Damaged Passport. If your passport was damaged , you must include a brief statement addressed to the U.S. Passport Agency Representative, stating how your passport was damaged. Use form D-64 for this.
9. Name Change. If your name has changed you must include your original proof of name change. Acceptable documents include marriage licenses, divorce decrees, and other court documents referencing the name change.
10. Child Support. If you owe more than $2,500 in child support you will not receive a passport.
Tags: common mistakes, Passport Processing
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I’m from Puerto Rico and I have two questions.
I need my passport soon but I’m not sure if my birth certificate will work because its kinnda old and it doest have a raise seal, not even one of the puertorican birth certificates have it, so the question is will my birth certificate work??
Second my father abandoned my mother when she was pregnant so I don’t know his DOB not even my mother remember that was almost 22 years ago so what happens if I don’t know my fathers DOB and I don’t write it down in the DS11 form, will my passport be denied?
Thanks for your help…
God Bless
June 21st, 2009 at 12:22 am[...] For more information on common mistakes, see our post: The Top 10 Reasons for Delays in Getting Your Passport [...]
November 13th, 2009 at 7:56 pmI submitted my passport application to The State Dept. over 10 weeks ago. Its “still in process” according to their records. I did in fact, have a “name change” due to marriage that could possibly be reason to the delay, but I don’t know for certain. The post office didn’t ask me to submit a copy or original marriage certificate at the time of application so I figured everything was okay. Can I use your services to find out whats going on with my application? Thank you.
April 19th, 2010 at 9:31 pmHi Jean,
We can resubmit your application for you if you need your passport in a hurry, but I would recommend calling the Department of State to check the status and see if you can figure out what the hold-up is. Here’s their number: 1-877-4-USA-PPT (1-877-487-2778)
We wouldn’t want you to pay us just to check the status of an application you’ve already submitted, but if you do need to resubmit and you need your passport expedited, we’d be glad to help!
May 6th, 2010 at 5:28 pm