My task manager just popped up a reminder this week: renew my kid’s passports 6 months before they expire.1 Oh joy, another round comes around. Renewing passports for kids is its own special kind of pain, at least for US citizens in my situation. We can’t renew kid passports online or via mail but have to travel to the nearest US embassy. Kid passports are good for only 5 years,2 and both parents are required to go to the embassy (unless you complete a notarized authorization for just one parent to get the passport).3
If the US embassy were nearby, that’d be no big deal, but our nearest US embassy is a 3 hour plane ride away, so renewing takes at least two days and sometimes three, depending on flights and appointment times. The hassle, time, and expense adds up quickly, especially if you have multiple kids.
You may not be a US citizen, but if you have to visit your embassy in order to renew a child’s passport (and can’t do it online or via mail), then read on because the tips in this article will benefit you even still.
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The convoluted problem
If you have only one kid and can renew adult passports via mail, then renewing just one kid’s passport may not be a big problem. But if you have multiple kids or if you have to visit your embassy for adult renewals as well, then the renewal process becomes convolutedly expensive and difficult. I have four kids, so here’s what my family’s renewal process would look like if I did it “normally” and renewed each passport 6 months before it expired:4
| Renewal Date | Who Renews |
| Round 1 | |
| March 2024 | Chris |
| September 2025 | Jonny |
| June 2026 | Me |
| December 2026 | Will |
| May 2027 | My wife |
| May 2028 | Guy |
| Round 2 | |
| October 2028 | Chris |
| April 2030 | Jonny |
| June 2031 | Will |
| December 2032 | Guy |
| Round 3 | |
| May 2033 | Chris |
| November 2034 | Jonny |
| January 2035 | Will |
| January 2036 | Me |
| December 2036 | My wife |
| July 2037 | Guy |
If we did this the normal way, we would have to visit the embassy 16 times in order to renew our passports for the next 15 years. That’s 16 round-trip flights (most of which require two tickets, for adult and child), 16–32 nights in a hotel, 16–32 days taken off work, 12 notarized authorizations for just one parent to attend the renewal (or 12 extra tickets for both adults to go),5 not to mention the hassle of keeping track of these expirations. It’s dizzyingly annoying. The good news is that there’s a much better way.
The better way
If you look closely at the graph above, you’ll notice that in 2026 both I and Will need to renew our passports. Will needs to renew his in December, 6 months before it expires, but since I’ll visit the embassy in June to renew mine, we could renew his at the same time. This would eliminate an entire trip to the embassy (with the related expenses, time, and hassle), but it would mean renewing Will’s passport 11 months before its actual expiration date.
But this is perfectly fine to renew early! You should renew your passport six months before it expires, but there’s no US requirement that you have to wait until a certain date to renew a passport.6 You’re allowed to renew your passport anytime you want, not just 6 months before it renews. The US embassy may ask you why you’re renewing early—especially if it’s multiple years early—but if you have a reasonable explanation, it shouldn’t cause a problem.7
That means that Will could renew his passport 11 months before it expires, at the same time that I’m renewing my passport already. And that means there’s a path forward from this insane renewal schedule to one that makes total sense.
The beautiful way
Since the US embassy allows you to renew a passport already, there’s no reason why I can’t renew all of my family’s passports at the exact same time. Sure, some of them will be close to expiration and some of them will be years away from it, but it’s perfectly legal. Instead of 16 trips in the next 13 years, here’s what the new renewal schedule looks like:
| Renewal Date | Who Renews |
| Round 1: March 2024 | Everyone |
| Round 2: October 2028 | Chris Jonny, Will, & Guy |
| Round 3: May 2033 | Everyone |
In March 2024, we take one trip as an entire family to renew all of our passports. One trip, one set of tickets, one hotel room, one or two days—maybe we even make it a vacation!—and we’re done. Then, four and a half years later, in October 2028, all of our kids need to renew their passports at the same time. Maybe one parent goes, maybe both go, but it’s all happens on the same trip. Then, when the kids’ passports need to be renewed in May 2033, the entire family goes again. Our adult passports wouldn’t expire until March 20347, so it’s a tad early, but we can do it at the same time as the kids.8
There you go—instead of 16 visits, we get down to just 3 visits. That’s it.
Doesn’t this cost more?
If you look at Guy’s visa, it wouldn’t normally need to be renewed until May 2028, so renewing it in March 2024 is four years early. Doesn’t that mean that I end up paying more to get his passport aligned? The answer is no—I’ll be saving money and you probably will save money by doing this too. Here’s why.
First, yes, there will be a one-time cost the first time you align all your kids passport expirations. You’ll have already paid for some time of validity which you won’t use. After you get all the kid passports expiration dates aligned, though, you’ll use the full validity of the passport each time. If you renew adults at the same time as your kids, you won’t use about 6 months of validity when you renew.
Second, the cost isn’t that much.9 Since a child’s passport book costs $135 and is valid for 5 years (60 months), you pay $27 for each year of validity. An adult’s passport book costs $130 and is valid for 10 years, so you pay $13 for each year of validity. So you can easily calculate how much money you “lose” by renewing early.10
Here’s what it will “cost” my family to renew early:
- Jonny: renewing early in March of 2024 (instead of September 2025) means he paid $45 for validity he won’t use.
- Me: renewing early (instead of June 2026) means I paid $30 for validity I won’t use.
- Will: renewing early (instead of December 2026) means he paid $82 for validity he won’t use.
- My wife: renewing early (instead of May 2027) means she paid $43 for validity she won’t use.
- Guy: renewing early (instead of May 2028) means he paid $125 for validity he won’t use.
All told, it will “cost” us $325 to renew early and get all of our passport expiration dates aligned. That’s not nothing, but the reality is that just one visit to the embassy costs more than this (roundtrip plane tickets for one adult and one child + one hotel room). By “losing” this $325 in validity we paid for, I’m eliminating 13 embassy visits. I’m saving a ton of money and hassle.
As a bonus perk, our entire family has new passport numbers at the same time, so when we have to update our phones, banks, etc. that use our passport numbers, we go through the process together, saving time and minimizing hassle.
How to calculate your “cost” of renewing early
Your actual cost will depend on the price of your passport, how many kids you have, and how much validity you won’t use in order to get all the passport dates aligned. This doesn’t require algebra to calculate and you could follow my example above to do it yourself, but I’ve decided to make it even easier for you and built you a incredibly cool spreadsheet that will calculate it all for you, automatically. It’s pretty awesome if I do say so myself.
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Passport renewal tips
- You don’t have to align your entire family at the same time. For example, you could get your kids aligned and not worry about adult renewals (because you can renew those via mail). Likewise, you could get 2 of your kids aligned and the other 2 aligned on a different date. Run the numbers in your exact situation to see what works best.
- If your passport number changes upon renewal, ask the embassy to print the old passport number in the new passport book. This will help prove continuity of your identity if you need to submit the new passport number to a place that had the old one (e.g., a bank).
- Don’t forget to get a new passport card at the same time you renew your passport book.
- After you renew, set up a reminder to take pictures of your kids’ faces every 6 months. Save those photos so you can easily show “facial development” between passport renewals.
One last note: if you’re still in your childbearing years and might have another child in the future, don’t put in too much effort to get passport expiration dates aligned right now. If you do, and then have another kid, you’ll have to do it again in the future. On the other hand, if you’re going to give birth and know this will be your last child, you might as well use the visit you have to make to your embassy for your infant to get everything aligned!
Conclusion
Navigating the labyrinth of passport renewal, especially as an expat with a family, can often feel like an overwhelming and costly endeavor. However, some strategic planning and a bit of creativity can transform this daunting task into a manageable, and even cost-effective, process. By aligning passport expiration dates, not only can you significantly reduce the number of embassy visits, but also minimize the disruption to your family’s life and finances. Maybe you even make it a mini-vacation!
Remember, the key is to prepare this in advance and consider the renewal process not as a series of isolated events but as a part of your family’s broader expat journey.
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Footnotes
- The reason to do it 6 months before it expires is that it’s fairly standard for countries to deny you entry if your passport will expire in less than 6 months. They don’t want people stranded in their country with expired passports. You can usually stay in your current country on a passport with less than 6 months of validity and you can always go to your passport country with less than 6 months of validity, but you can’t always go to a third country. Thus, you want to renew before you get into those last 6 months. ↩︎
- This makes sense; my youngest two kids passport photos are when they’re less than a week old. Not so helpful when they’re 9! ↩︎
- Both parents are required to attend unless one parent fills out a notarized authorization for the other parent to apply for the passport. The goal of this rule is to prevent one parent from running off internationally with a child. ↩︎
- While false passport expiration dates are used to protect privacy, I am accurately representing the relative interval between them. And I’m using fake names for my kid from my favorite band. Mad props if you know which band the names are from! ↩︎
- Four of the visits wouldn’t need it, as they are for adult renewals. This is assuming adults can’t renew online/via mail. ↩︎
- If you’re not a US citizen, then check with your embassy—and then let me know! I’d love to update this to reflect more nationalities. ↩︎
- When I renewed one child’s passport two years early, the embassy officer asked me, “Why?” I explained it was to align expiration dates and that was it. No problem at all. ↩︎
- Because renewing 6 months before it expires means you don’t use that 6 months of validity, and because the kids have renewed once more than adults, the parents passports have 6 months more validity than the kids have when you get to “Round 3.” ↩︎
- Technically, it’s not even a “cost.” Renewing early doesn’t “cost” you more money since you already paid for the existing passport and will pay the same price for the next passport. It’s actually a “sunk cost” of not using the full years of validity that you already paid for. ↩︎
- Calculating on a monthly basis, instead of a yearly basis, yields more accurate results, which is what I did for the below calculations. To be more exact, since you have to renew a passport 6 months early, the actual validity period of a US child’s passport is just 54 months and so the actual cost is $2.50 for each month. For an adult’s, the validity is 114 months at a cost of $1.14/month. ↩︎