After your new passport arrives, keep your old one. That’s the short answer to what to do with an old passport after renewal, and it holds for almost every situation: the cancelled book still proves your U.S. citizenship, it may contain visas that are still valid, and it works as backup identification in a few narrow but useful places. Destroy it only if you’re sure none of those uses apply to you, and when you do, destroy it thoroughly.
What You Get Back From the State Department
If you renewed by mail or in person, you submitted your most recent passport with your application. The State Department cancels it and returns it in a separate mailing, which can arrive up to four weeks after your new passport shows up.1U.S. Department of State. Renew Your Passport by Mail The cancellation is usually a series of hole punches through the cover and pages. It makes the book visibly invalid for travel while leaving the stamps, visas, and personal data readable.
If you renewed online, you never mailed anything in. You still have the old book physically intact, but it stopped being valid the moment the new one was issued.2U.S. Department of State. Frequently Asked Questions About Passport Services
Why Keeping It Is Usually the Right Call
A cancelled passport is more useful than most people realize. Before you decide what to do with it, check whether any of the following apply.
It Can Prove Your Citizenship Later
A U.S. passport issued for its full validity period (10 years for adults, 5 years for children under 16) qualifies as primary evidence of citizenship when you apply for a new passport, even after it has expired.3U.S. Department of State. Get Citizenship Evidence for a U.S. Passport The State Department’s language requires the passport to be “undamaged,” which leaves some ambiguity about a book with cancellation holes, but standard hole punches from the State Department itself are treated differently from water damage, torn pages, or unauthorized markings. If you ever misplace your birth certificate or naturalization paperwork, that old passport may be the fastest way to prove citizenship.
Valid Visas Can Live in a Cancelled Book
Multi-year visas often outlast the passport they were issued in. If you hold a valid foreign visa in your cancelled U.S. passport, you carry both books when you travel: the new one for entry and the old one to show the visa. Never try to remove a visa from one passport and transfer it to another. Doing so invalidates it immediately.4U.S. Department of State. About Visas – The Basics
Travel History for Future Visa Applications
Some visa applications ask you to document your travel over the past 5 or 10 years. Entry and exit stamps in the old passport are the easiest way to answer. Reconstructing that history without the stamps is tedious and sometimes impossible.
A Personal Record Worth Holding
Old passports are personal records. The stamps and visas trace a story that’s easy to forget, and passport applications are considered a strong source for family history research too.5National Archives. Passport Records
Where an Expired Passport Still Works as ID
Your cancelled passport hasn’t become useless for identification, but the rules are specific.
At TSA airport checkpoints, an expired U.S. passport is accepted for up to two years past its expiration date.6TSA. Acceptable Identification at the TSA Checkpoint That window can save a domestic trip if your license is lost or your new passport hasn’t arrived.
For Form I-9 employment verification, an expired or cancelled passport does not qualify. USCIS requires documents with an expiration date to be unexpired when presented.7U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification The Social Security Administration accepts a U.S. tourist passport as primary proof of identity only within 10 years of issue, and only when the photo still verifies the person presenting it.8Social Security Administration. POMS RM 10210.425 – What Are the Procedures for Specific Document Situations
Notary rules vary by state. Some accept expired ID within a defined window, others require current documents. Check your state’s rules before you rely on an old passport for a signing.
Storing It So You Can Actually Find It
If you’re keeping the old book, store it separately from your current one. Grabbing the wrong passport at the airport is an easy mistake and a costly one. A home safe, a locked drawer, or a fireproof document box all work. Keep it away from moisture and direct sunlight.
If it holds a live visa, storage isn’t the right place for it. Keep it with your current passport in your travel documents, marked or sleeved separately so you can hand a border officer the right one.
If You Decide to Destroy It
If you’ve confirmed there are no valid visas inside, you don’t expect to need it for travel history, and you’d rather not store it, destruction is reasonable. The goal is making every piece of personal data unreadable: your full name, date of birth, photo, signature, and passport number are all in there.
- A cross-cut shredder is the most thorough home method. It produces confetti rather than long strips. You may need to cut the cover into smaller sections first, since the binding can jam some machines.
- Cutting by hand with scissors works if you’re methodical. Cut through the photo page, the data page, and every page with stamps or personal information, and cut small enough that no single fragment carries your full name, number, or photo together.
- Burning is effective but needs a safe outdoor space, and the cover material can produce unpleasant fumes.
U.S. passports issued since 2007 have an RFID chip embedded in the back cover that stores your biometric and personal data. If you’re destroying the book, cut through or puncture that back cover. Shredding the pages while leaving the cover intact can leave the chip readable. For reference, the Government Publishing Office’s own protocol for defective passport books is to shred and then incinerate.9U.S. Government Publishing Office. Audit Report – Management of Excess and Obsolete Paper and Secure Documents You don’t need to match that at home, but the principle is the same: the data has to be irrecoverable. Tossing an intact passport in the trash or recycling is not safe.
If Your Old Passport Goes Missing
Do not file a lost or stolen passport report for an expired book. The State Department’s DS-64 process applies only to valid, unexpired passports; an expired one is already invalid for travel.10U.S. Department of State. Report Your Passport Lost or Stolen
Identity theft is the real concern. If you think the passport was stolen rather than misplaced, consider placing a fraud alert on your credit reports and watching your accounts. The book can’t be used to cross a border, but the personal data on its pages can feed other kinds of fraud.