I renewed my US passport in a single week with the government’s speedy online beta

Perhaps you’ve heard you can now renew your US passport online. As long as you meet certain requirements, there’s a beta website for that. The State Department tells me it’s not necessarily faster — but anecdotally, my family just had two of the speediest, most painless experiences we’ve ever had with the US government.

I applied from my phone, I shot my own digital photo at home — and one week later, I picked up my new passport at the post office. I submitted it on June 15th, my passport was issued on June 20th, and it was waiting for me on the 21st. That’s just six days in total.

When my wife tried it, her renewal went even quicker: she applied on June 24th, her application was approved on the 26th, her new...

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