The United States Department of State issued a memo on Dec. 28, stating that citizens who meet specific criteria can return to their home countries before March 31, 2022 with expired passports.
However, many conditions apply.
First, not every expired US passport is acceptable as a return document. This exemption applies to US citizens currently abroad and returning to the United States (not leaving the country and going elsewhere) whose passports have expired after January 1, 2020.
In addition, only certain types of passports are relevant. The relevant expired document must have been an original 10-year passport, with the exception of persons who were under 15 years old when the passport was issued, which are 5-year passports.
These passports must be unaltered and in the possession of the owner.
Americans who meet these criteria can return to the United States or any U.S. territory until the end of March 2022. Short layovers are allowed as some destinations do not have a direct return flight to the United States.
This is the second major passport news announced this week.
“The increased fee is necessary to ensure we can produce one of the most secure travel and identity documents in the world,” the State Department wrote in a tweet.
A likely reason for this expired passport amnesty is the backlog of renewals due to the pandemic. The State Department website advises Americans to expect a passport renewal to take between eight and 11 weeks, although individuals can pay a $60 fee to speed up the process.
That said, government officials have admitted that wait times have been longer than usual in the past two years.
At the time, she estimated that there were between 1.5 and 2 million pending passport applications.
However, those documents are only good for the one-way trip back to the United States, so people who get these emergency passports will have to go through the usual procedure and then get a new passport.