How to Check Your Passport Renewal Status Online

To check the status of your passport renewal online, go to passportstatus.state.gov and enter your last name, date of birth (MM/DD/YYYY), and the last four digits of your Social Security number.¹ If you included an email address on your renewal form, the State Department will also send automatic updates whenever your status changes, and you can add or update that address from the status portal at any time.²

Enter your last name exactly as you wrote it on the renewal form. Include a suffix like Jr. or III if you used one. Hyphens and apostrophes trip the lookup up more often than you’d think, so if the first attempt fails, try variations. The State Department itself suggests entering names both with and without the punctuation, for example “Jackson-Smith” and “Jackson Smith,” until the record appears.²

What Each Status Message Means

The tracker uses a set of standard messages, and each one tells you something specific about where your renewal is.²

In Process. Your application is being reviewed at a passport agency or center.
Approved. Review is done and your passport is being printed. If the status flips back to In Process after showing Approved, the agency found a problem during final review and is correcting it before printing a new one.
Passport Mailed. The passport is on its way. Passport books ship by a trackable delivery service, and this is the only status update that includes a tracking number. Passport cards ship by First Class Mail with no tracking.
Supporting Documents Mailed. Your old passport, birth certificate, or other submitted documents are being returned separately by First Class Mail. They can arrive up to four weeks after the new passport.
Additional Information Needed. The agency has sent you a letter or email requesting more information, and your application is on hold. You have 90 days from the date of the letter to respond.
Information Received, In Process Again. You sent what they asked for and the review has restarted. Expect a delay, because the clock effectively reset when your application went on hold.

If Nothing Shows Up Yet

It can take up to two weeks from the day you apply before your status appears as In Process.² That window covers mail time to the processing center plus the time staff need to open your envelope and enter your information.

If you mailed the renewal, pull up the tracking number from your mail receipt and confirm the package was actually delivered. Enter it on the carrier’s tracking page (USPS, FedEx, or UPS, depending on how you shipped it). Save the delivery confirmation and note the delivery date, because that’s when the processing clock starts. If more than two weeks have passed since confirmed delivery and the online system still shows nothing, call the National Passport Information Center with the tracking confirmation in front of you.²

Less often, the system is down for maintenance, or a data-entry error on the application is keeping your record from surfacing. For name-related lookup problems, try the spelling variations described above. If nothing works, the phone line is your next step.²

Checking by Phone

Call the National Passport Information Center at 1-877-487-2778. Live representatives are available Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. The line is closed on federal holidays.³

If the Status Says Mailed but Nothing Arrives

When the tracker reads Passport Mailed and the document hasn’t shown up, start with the tracking number in that status update. A passport book ships by a trackable service, so you can see exactly where the package is.² Give it a reasonable delivery window before treating it as lost.

If the passport really is lost, file Form DS-86, the Statement of Non-Receipt of a U.S. Passport, with the State Department. On the form you certify under penalty of perjury that you never received the document. You have 120 days from the date your passport was issued to file. Report inside that window and the State Department will issue a replacement at no additional charge. Miss it and you’ll have to reapply from scratch and pay the full passport fees again.⁴

One thing that catches people out: your supporting documents ship separately from the passport itself, by regular First Class Mail, and can arrive up to four weeks after the passport. Don’t assume they’re gone just because the passport got there first.²

1
U.S. Department of State. U.S. Passport Application Status
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U.S. Department of State. Check Your Application Status
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U.S. Department of State. Contact U.S. Passports
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U.S. Department of State. DS-86 Statement of Non-Receipt of a U.S. Passport