How Much Is a Passport (2026 Data)

How much is a passport? A first-time US adult passport book costs $165¹ in 2026 - a $130 application fee to the State Department plus a $35 execution fee paid at the acceptance facility.¹ That single number splits many ways once the details matter: a passport card instead of a book, a renewal instead of a first-time application, a child's passport instead of an adult's, and rush service instead of the routine wait, each carry a different price.¹

This page lays out every version of that fee, its full history back to 2000, how many passports the country issues and holds each year, where in the country passports are issued most per resident, and how the US fee compares with 12 other countries once everything is converted to a single currency.

How much a US passport costs in 2026

The basic fee schedule

How much does a passport cost? A first-time adult (16 and older) passport book runs $165¹ total, and adults who qualify to renew by mail or online pay only $130¹, with no execution fee.¹

How much is a passport for adults: $165 the first time, $130 every renewal after that.¹

Where the money goes

How much is the government fee for a passport? The $165 total is actually three separate regulatory charges: a $50² application fee, an $80² "passport book security surcharge," and a $35 execution fee - so $130³ goes to the federal government itself, and, when the application is filed at an acceptance facility, the remaining $35 stays with that facility.²

How much is a passport application? Officially, the base "Passport Book Application Services" fee is just $20² for a minor or $50² for an adult (Form DS-11) - the security surcharge is billed as a separate line item, even though both go to the State Department together.²

How much is a passport at the post office? A post office is one of several kinds of acceptance facilities - alongside some clerks of court, public libraries and other public agencies - authorized to collect the same $35 execution fee and forward a DS-11 application; the fee is identical wherever it is filed.⁴

Passport book

How much is a passport book? $165¹ the first time, valid 10 years for an adult, and the only US passport document accepted for international air travel.¹

Passport card

How much is a passport card? The wallet-sized card, valid only for land and sea travel to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Bermuda - never for flying - costs $65¹ for a first-time adult applicant and $30¹ to renew, in each case $100 less than the equivalent book; unlike the book, the card carries no security surcharge.² Applying for a book and a card together costs $195¹ for a first-time adult - a $160¹ combined application fee plus the $35 execution fee, charged just once - $30 more than the book alone, not double the price of two separate applications.¹

Children, replacements and rush service

Passport for a child

How much is a passport for a child? Every applicant under 16 pays the minor rate: $135¹ for a first-time book or $50¹ for a card, both valid only 5 years instead of an adult's 10, and both requiring both parents' consent.²

How much is a passport for a 16-year-old? At 16 the State Department already treats the applicant as an adult - the fee jumps to the full $165 book / $65 card rate, valid the full 10 years, not 5.²

Who pays the execution fee

The $35 execution fee is charged to first-time applicants and to anyone else who must apply in person; a book and a card applied for together on one application carry it only once.² In-person filing is required for every first-time applicant and for most applicants under 18 who are renewing, while other renewals can go by mail or online.⁴ A small set of applicants pay no application fee at all: federal officers and employees and their families traveling on official duty, Peace Corps volunteers, US merchant seamen who need a passport for their work, close relatives of deceased service members visiting their graves abroad, and certain disaster-relief workers.² A rule effective April 3, 2026 added an exemption for certain first responders under the First Responders Passport Act, issued as no-fee regular passports through the Special Issuance Agency.⁵

Replacing a lost, stolen or damaged passport

How much it costs to replace a lost passport: the same as a first-time application, $165⁶ for a book. A lost or stolen passport is first reported on Form DS-64, which is free, and the applicant then applies again on Form DS-11, as a first-time applicant does; a damaged passport is also replaced through Form DS-11.⁶

How much is a first-time passport, compared with a later renewal: $165 against $130 - the $35 difference is the one-time execution fee a renewal does not pay.¹

Renewing an expired passport

How much it costs to renew an expired passport: the regular $130¹ renewal fee still applies by mail as long as the prior book was issued as an adult and is not too old or damaged to submit; otherwise the full $165 first-time process applies instead.¹

Renewing online

Online renewal became fully available to the public in September 2024, and the fee is the same $130 as a mail renewal.⁴ It is limited to applicants aged 25 or older who are renewing a passport that is or was valid for 10 years, that expires within one year or expired less than five years ago, and who are not asking for expedited service.⁴ An August 2026 proposed rule would open the online channel to eligible applicants living abroad and drop the requirement that the most recent passport have a year or less of validity left; its comment period closed on October 27, 2026.⁷

Name changes

How much it costs to change your name on a passport: within a year of issuance, a free amendment (Form DS-5504, under 22 CFR 22.1 item 2(d)) covers it; after a year, a name change requires the standard renewal fee, $130² for a book.²

Emergency, expedited and same-day service

How much is an emergency passport? Expedited service and, for imminent travel, an in-person Passport Agency appointment are the two rush options.⁴ Expedited service adds $60¹ to any application and, per the current advertised service commitment, shortens the routine wait to about 2 to 3 weeks⁴, not counting mail time.⁴ Faster return shipping, 1-to-3-day delivery instead of standard mail, adds $22.05¹ more.¹ For travel within about 14 calendar days, the fee chart directs applicants to book an in-person Passport Agency appointment instead of relying on expedited mail service.¹

The total cost of a passport, every rush add-on included, is $247.05³: the $165 book, the $60 expedited fee and the $22.05 delivery fee together.³

A file-search fee of $150¹ is charged when an applicant cannot present evidence of US citizenship and asks the State Department to search its own records for an earlier passport or a Consular Report of Birth Abroad to establish it.² How much are passport pictures? An optional photo taken at an acceptance facility costs $15⁸ more, on top of whichever fee applies.⁸

The $60 expedite fee has not changed since August 2002: the 2002 annual edition of the regulation listed it at $35⁹ for guaranteed 3-day processing,⁹ and the August 2002 schedule set it at $60¹⁰.¹⁰ Over the same years the base adult book fee rose from $60 to $165.²

Set beside State's own advertised commitments for the same period, the difference between a measured average and a published target becomes clear.

The two kinds of figures measure different things: GAO's 5.2/2.4 and 10.5/6.1-week readings are averages the office itself measured from application data for May through July of the fiscal year named; the State Department's ranges are advertised service commitments, not measurements of actual average wait.¹¹ State's advertised routine commitment fell in three steps after March 2023, from 10-13 weeks to 4-6 weeks currently.¹²

Routine processing had stretched from 6-9 weeks in January 2023 to 10-13 weeks by that March; the department returned to its pre-pandemic 6-8 week commitment in December 2023 and cut it to 4-6 weeks on October 3, 2024, with expedited service held at 2-3 weeks.⁴ A July 2025 report to Congress put the increase in passport adjudication staff since January 2022 at over 32%.⁴ How much time it takes to get a passport, from application to delivery, today: about 4 to 6 weeks routine, 2 to 3 weeks expedited, per the current advertised commitment.⁴

How the fee has changed since 2000

The adult first-time passport-book fee has moved in six steps since 2000, each one set by a specific change to 22 CFR 22.1, not by a gradual increase.¹⁴ It began the period at $60¹⁴ (a $45 application fee plus a $15 execution fee, per the 2000 annual edition of the regulation).¹⁴ From August 19, 2002 it was $85¹⁰ ($55 application plus a $30 execution fee).¹⁰ By the 2005 annual edition a $12 passport security surcharge had been added, for $97¹⁵.¹⁵ The 2008 edition shows $100¹⁶: a $55 application fee, a $20 surcharge and a $25 execution fee.¹⁶

A June 2010 rule then raised the application fee to $70 and the security surcharge to $40, taking the total to $135¹⁷ effective July 13, 2010 - the largest single jump in the whole history, $35.¹⁷ A 2015 rule re-split that $110 into a $50 application fee and a $60 surcharge without changing the total.¹⁸ A January 2018 rule raised the execution fee itself from $25 to $35, taking the total to $145¹⁹, effective April 2, 2018.¹⁹ An October 2021 rule raised the security surcharge from $60 to $80, taking the total to today's $165²⁰, effective December 27, 2021.²⁰ The fee has not changed since; because it is set by regulation rather than by an index, it changes only when the State Department publishes a new rule, not on any fixed schedule.²

The security surcharge, first listed at $12 in the 2005¹⁵ annual edition, is now the single largest of the fee's three components.¹⁵

Split by component, the same $60-to-$165 history shows the execution fee has risen the least in dollar terms (from $15 to $35) while the security surcharge, which did not exist before 2005, is now the largest single piece of the total ($80 of $165).³ The projection line on the chart above is our calculation, not a forecast: it extends the 2000-2026 trend, while the real fee changes only when a new rule is published.³

The application fee itself has stayed between $45 and $70 throughout, and has been $50 since 2015, while the execution fee more than doubled, from $15 to $35, and the security surcharge went from nonexistent before 2005 to $80 by 2021.¹⁴

An adult renewal, which pays the application fee and the surcharge but no execution fee, moved with the same rules: $55¹⁰ from August 2002, $67¹⁵ by 2005 and $75¹⁶ by 2008, then $110¹⁷ from July 2010 - unchanged by the 2018 execution-fee increase - and $130²⁰ since December 2021.²⁰

The longest stretch at one first-time fee level was the $135 in force from July 13, 2010 to April 2, 2018, nearly eight years.¹⁹ The current $165 has been in force since December 27, 2021, almost five years by November 2026, and no proposed rule to change it had been published by then.² Before 2010, no fee level lasted much more than three years: the $85 ran from August 2002 until the 2005 surcharge, and the $97 until the February 2008 change.¹⁶

How many passports the US issues and holds

The government issued 27,348,416⁴ passports in fiscal year 2025, a record - up from 24,021,257⁴ in fiscal 2023 and far above the pandemic-era low of 11,711,945⁴ in fiscal 2020.⁴ Of the fiscal-2025 total, 22,804,394²¹ were passport books and 4,544,022²¹ were passport cards.²¹

Annual issuance has not risen in a straight line. It climbed from 5,547,693²² in fiscal 1996 to 18,382,798²² in fiscal 2007, then fell back to 12,613,153²² by fiscal 2011.²² It rose again to 21,378,994²² in fiscal 2017, dropped to 11,711,945²² in the 2020 pandemic year and has set a new high in each of the last three fiscal years.²² The table gives every year with its change from the year before.

Our calculation, not a forecast: the projection line on the chart above extends the 1996-2025 trend and is not an official estimate.³ Every one of those issuances added to the stock of valid passports in circulation, which reached 183,170,240²¹ at the close of fiscal 2025 (Sept. 30, 2025), up from 169,915,821²² a year earlier and 48,614,417²² in 2000.²²

The stock grew in every year shown except 2020, when it slipped from 146,775,089²² to 143,116,633²².²² Its largest one-year gain before 2025 came in 2007, from 70,598,794²² to 82,100,668²².²² By the close of fiscal 2025 the stock was about 3.8³ times its 2000 level.³

The share of Americans who hold a valid passport has moved just as fast: 5%⁴ in 1990, up to 46%¹¹ by 2023 (GAO's reading) and 48%⁴ most recently (CRS's reading, dated 2024).⁴ The two most recent figures come from different bodies measured close together in time, not a single tracked series, so they are shown separately rather than as a year-over-year change.¹¹

Listed with the year and the body behind each reading, the two recent figures sit close enough to reflect measurement differences rather than a real one-year jump.

Passport issuance by state

Passport ownership by state - the total stock each state's residents hold - is not published as a single official figure. Fiscal-2025 passport issuance, a one-year flow, mapped against each state's population, is the most complete state-level breakdown available.²¹ The District of Columbia is left unshaded on the map because its rate is far higher than any state's and not comparable to one; it is still listed in the table.²³

New Jersey issued 99.0³ passports per 1,000 residents in fiscal 2025, more than any state.²¹ West Virginia issued the fewest, 29.3³ per 1,000.²¹ The District of Columbia's rate, 326.4³ per 1,000, is far above any state and is not comparable to one.²³ Ranked side by side, the highest states stand out more clearly.

Seven of the 8 highest-issuing states have an ocean coastline; Minnesota is the only landlocked state among them.³ The three lowest-issuing states - Arkansas, Mississippi and West Virginia - are all in the Census Bureau's South region.²³

In absolute numbers the largest states lead: California's residents received 3,120,262²¹ passports in fiscal 2025, Texas residents 1,962,631²¹, Florida's 1,613,834²¹ and New York's 1,592,643²¹, while Wyoming's received 30,301²¹, the fewest of any state.²¹ The 51 state and DC figures sum to 22,409,351³, below the national 27,348,416 and closer to the 22,804,394 books; the relayed state table does not say which documents or applicants it leaves out, so the rates are best read as a comparison between states.³ The ranked table below sets every state on the same per-resident basis.

What a passport costs, country by country

How much is an international passport, once every country's fee is converted to the same currency? The passport fee by country spans a wide range even among wealthy, well-traveled nations, each an official published fee (Australia's through a law-firm relay) converted to USD at a single Federal Reserve H.10 exchange-rate reading (2026-10-30).²⁴

How much is a Mexican passport: MXN 4,280²⁵ for a 10-year adult passport, $227.73³ at the 2026-10-30 rate.²⁵

How much is a Canadian passport: CAD 163.50²⁶ for a 10-year adult passport applied for inside Canada, $117.15³.²⁶

The UK's standard online adult fee, GBP 102²⁷, converts to $136.66³.²⁷ Germany's 10-year Reisepass costs EUR 70²⁸ for an applicant issued it domestically at 24 or older, or $78.14³;²⁸ the same document issued by a German mission abroad costs EUR 106.00 instead.²⁹ Japan's, cut sharply in a July 2026 reform, now costs JPY 9,300³⁰ in person, $59.06³.³⁰

India's 10-year, 36-page passport costs INR 2,500³³, $26.33³ - the cheapest of the 13 compared countries.³³ Australia's, at $297.00³, is the priciest, about 11.3³ times India's fee.³

How much is a passport to go to Canada: the same $165 US book works for any destination, including Canada; no separate document or fee applies uniquely there, though a US passport card also suffices for a land or sea crossing.⁸

Mexico's fee, $227.73³, is nearly double Canada's $117.15³, and the three largest Western European economies compared here - the UK, Germany and France - span $78.14³ to $136.66³ among themselves.³

Mexico's own fee, by validity length

Mexico's own fee scales with how long the passport lasts, but the validity lengths are not an open choice for every applicant: the 1-year option is issued only to children under 3 and in limited consular-protection cases, and the 10-year option only to applicants 18 and older.²⁵

Who actually qualifies for each validity length matters as much as the price difference between them.

Applying from the Philippines

How much for a passport in the Philippines: a Philippine citizen applying at home pays PHP 950³⁸ for regular processing or PHP 1,200³⁸ for expedited processing, plus a PHP 50 payment-center convenience fee.³⁸ A US citizen applying from the Philippines, by contrast, pays the identical US schedule as someone applying inside the US - the same $165¹ first-time adult book fee - through a US embassy or consulate instead of a domestic facility.¹

Canada's March 2026 increase

Canada raised its passport fees on March 31, 2026, the first change since 2013, for every adult book whether applied for at home or abroad.²⁶

Each of the four fees rose by between 2.1% and 2.4%, and the premium for a 10-year book applied for outside Canada rose from CAD 100.00 to CAD 102.75.²⁶

Several of the compared countries changed their fee during 2026. South Korea's 58-page, 10-year book rose to KRW 52,000³⁷ on March 1,³⁷ Canada's adult fees rose on March 31,²⁶ and the UK's online adult fee reached GBP 102³⁹ in April.³⁹ India's 36-page book went from INR 1,500 to INR 2,500³³ on July 1,³³ while Japan moved the other way on the same date, to JPY 9,300³⁰ in person and JPY 8,900³⁰ online.³⁰ Every figure in the comparison is the fee in force in late 2026, converted at one exchange-rate date, 2026-10-30.²⁴

Validity, and what the fee buys per year

How often a passport needs to be renewed depends on age and country. Passport validity by country runs mostly on a 10-year cycle for adults: each of the 13 fees compared here is for a 10-year adult document, as stated on each country's own fee source.³

How much is a 10-year passport, spread over its own lifetime? A US adult book's $165³ fee works out to $16.50³ a year, and a renewal's $130 works out to $13.00³ a year.³

A US adult book's $16.50 a year compares with $13.67³ for the UK, $11.71³ for Canada and $29.70³ for Australia, each on a 10-year adult book.³ The US adult card, at $6.50³ a year, is the cheapest first-time US option per year, though several other countries' documents cost less per year still.³ Measured against the federal minimum wage, unchanged at $7.25 an hour since 2009, a first-time adult book costs the equivalent of 22.8³ hours of minimum-wage work.⁴⁰

A few things that changed along the way

How much is a standard passport, since the page-count rules changed? Since January 1, 2016 there is no price difference for domestic applicants: the standard 28-page book and the larger 52-page book cost the same $165, after the State Department discontinued the paid 24-page visa-page insert it had previously sold to travelers who filled every page.⁴¹

The cost of staying current over three decades

Because a US adult book must be renewed roughly every 10 years, the fee an owner actually pays over time is the first-time charge plus one renewal charge for every decade after it, not a one-off $165.³

Over 30 years, an adult who keeps only a book pays $425³, against $125³ for a card alone and $515³ for both; one rush application on the book-only path raises the total to $507.05³.³ Each total assumes every renewal qualifies for the mail or online route; a passport that no longer qualifies has to be replaced through the $165 first-time process instead of the $130 renewal.¹

The fee, adjusted for inflation

Nominal dollars hide how much of the fee's rise is just general price growth rather than a real increase in what a passport costs to obtain. Converting each historical fee level to constant 2025 dollars, using the government's own consumer price index, answers that.⁴²

Between rule changes the real fee falls every year: the $135 set in July 2010 was worth $199.32³ in 2025 dollars that year but $177.31³ by 2017, the last full year before the next increase.³ The $145 set in April 2018 followed the same path, from $185.90³ in 2018 to $180.37³ in 2020, before the December 2021 rule lifted it again.³

Set against inflation, the fee's real cost actually peaked in 2010³, at the equivalent of $199.32³ in 2025 dollars, and has since drifted down to today's $165 even though the nominal number has not fallen once.⁴² Measured from the December 2021 increase alone, the same $165 was worth $196.04³ in 2025 dollars, so general price growth has cut the fee's real value by about 16%³ in four years without any rule change.³ Over the full 2000-2025 span, annual average consumer prices rose 87%³ while the nominal fee rose 175%³, from $60 to $165, so the fee outran general inflation even after its recent real-terms slide.³

Where and how applicants actually apply

Every in-person application is filed at one of two kinds of location: a nationwide network of acceptance facilities that only forward paperwork, or a smaller set of government-run agencies that can also issue in person; eligible renewals go by mail or online instead.⁴ The fee is the same at either; an agency appointment is the route for urgent, in-person service.⁴

Beyond the wider acceptance-facility network, a smaller set of government-run agencies handles in-person, urgent cases. An acceptance facility only forwards a completed application; an agency can adjudicate it on the spot, and the two counts moved differently over the same years. Six more agencies are planned, in Salt Lake City, Kansas City, Orlando, Charlotte, San Antonio and Cincinnati.⁴

All US passport books are printed at just two facilities, one that opened in Hot Springs, Arkansas in March 2007 and a second in Tucson, Arizona in May 2008;⁴³ the January 2026 reading still names two print centers.⁴

What each fee rule was projected to raise

Every fee change starts as a projection: before a rule takes effect, the government publishes its own estimate of how applicant volume and total fee revenue will move under it.¹⁸ Those projections are also where the government explains, in its own words, why a particular fee is going up or down.

Each of those dollar projections rested on its own projected application volume, published in the same rule. The 2021 figure, for example, is 15,900,000²⁰ projected applications times the $20 surcharge increase, or $318,000,000³ a year.³

The 2015 rule's two application-fee cuts and its surcharge increase were designed to offset each other: the total fee an applicant paid did not change, even though the projected dollar swings inside it, above, look large on their own.¹⁸

Three years later, a different rule change had its own, itemized cost drivers, this time reported per passport product rather than as a lump sum. Rising labor costs for the people who adjudicate applications, not materials or printing technology, accounted for the largest single piece.²⁰

What a passport photo and full first application actually cost

Away from an acceptance facility, retailers each set their own price for the same two-print 2x2-inch passport photo set, and the range between them is wide.⁴⁵ None of these prices are part of the federal fee schedule; each retailer sets its own.⁸

Laid out as a full matrix, every adult combination of product and speed is visible at once, rather than scattered across separate mentions of the book, the card and each add-on fee individually.

The same matrix applies to a minor applicant, at the minor rate, though every cell in it is lower than its adult equivalent by exactly the difference in the base application fee.

Renewing instead of applying fresh changes every cell of the same matrix, since a renewal skips the execution fee that a first-time application always carries, no matter which speed or product is chosen.

A family applying together shows the same matrix at scale: two adults and two children, each getting a first-time book, owe $600³ at routine speed, or $840³ if every one of the four applications is expedited.³

Spread over each document's own validity period, the ranking changes again, since a document that costs more upfront but lasts twice as long can still end up cheaper per year than a shorter-lived one.

Adding a photo and a birth certificate to the base fee gives a more realistic total for a first-time applicant who does not already have either document on hand, rather than the bare government fee alone.

How the passport compares with other US identity credentials

A passport is not the only federally relevant identity credential an American might need. REAL ID-compliant driver's licenses and Enhanced Driver's Licenses each carry their own, separate cost.⁵⁰ None of them replaces a passport for international travel, but several can substitute for it on a domestic flight or a short land crossing.

Set next to a REAL ID, the two passport products' relative value becomes clearer: a REAL ID costs less upfront but cannot substitute for a passport on any international trip, while the card sits in between, cheaper than the book but still usable for a specific set of nearby destinations.

Another credential, the Enhanced Driver's License, exists only in five states. Washington sells it only as a full license, $153.00⁵² for 6 years or $187.00⁵² for 8, so it is not ranked against the other states' fees or add-ons below.⁵²

Two more credentials, all 50 states and DC

A birth certificate is the document most first-time applicants need before they can even apply for a passport, and a REAL ID is the domestic-flight alternative many travelers get instead. Both are priced state by state, not federally.⁴⁹ Together, the two credentials illustrate how much of the real cost of getting a first passport sits outside the federal fee schedule altogether, in documents most applicants already need to gather regardless of which passport product they choose.

Michigan's $34⁴⁹ birth-certificate fee is the highest of the 52 issuing offices listed (51 jurisdictions, with New York City shown separately), and Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico and Vermont charge as little as $10⁴⁹.⁴⁹

Hawaii and New Jersey's $67.50⁵¹ REAL ID-compliant license fee is the highest of the 51 jurisdictions; Ohio's $26.75⁵¹ is the lowest, and the 51-jurisdiction average is $44.73³.⁵¹

Conclusions

1. The $165 figure is only the starting price. A renewal costs $35 less, a card costs $100 less, a child's book costs $30 less but expires in half the time, and a full rush application costs $82.05 more - the true range for a US passport runs from $30 (a card renewal) to $247.05 (a rush first-time book), or $277.05 for a rush first-time book and card.
2. The fee moves in regulatory steps, not a gradual climb. Six rule changes took it from $60 in 2000 to $165 in 2021, and it has stayed at $165 through 2026 because no further rule has been issued, not because of any fixed schedule.
3. More Americans hold a passport than in 1990. The holding share rose from 5% in 1990 to 46-48% more recently,⁴ and fiscal-2025's issuance total, 27,348,416, topped every earlier year on record, lifting circulation to 183,170,240.
4. The fee is only part of the bill. With a photo and a birth certificate, a first-time adult book costs $192.64 to $202.99, and fiscal-2025 issuance per resident still ranged more than threefold among the 50 states, from West Virginia's 29.3 per 1,000 to New Jersey's 99.0, under the same federal fee.
5. The US sits in the upper half internationally. At $165, it costs more than 10 of the other 12 compared countries; only Australia and Mexico charge more.