Faced with the growing numbers of Americans looking for passports and anxious to avoid the months-long delays of recent years, the U.S. State Department is opening six more brick-and-mortar passport offices in addition to restarting its online application system.
The new offices will be in Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Orlando, San Antonio, Charlotte and Cincinnati. That will bring the number of offices up to 35, as well as more than 7,400 post offices, libraries and other places that can take applications.
While in the past, many mocked Americans for staying in the U.S. and for a low percentage holding passports, that’s changed in recent years with increased overseas travel and cruising; nearly half of all Americans now have passports, a rate roughly comparable to that of Europeans. The State Department’s Passport Agency issues about 24 million passports a year, including renewals.
