Lecture is all about passports, how to be prepared to either get your new passport or renew your passport. So let's get started. The key takeaways for this lecture are one, make sure you know your passport rules and how to protect your passport. Most of what we're going to be talking about is focused on us passports. But the same rule goes for any country's passport that you're traveling on. Make sure you know how long it's valid for how to renew it, how to protect it, how to replace it.

The second thing is to make sure that you get a passport book, not a passport card. For the US there's something small called the passport card. It's the same size and it looks like a driver's license. However it can be used to cross borders, specifically the Canadian border and the Mexican border with the US however, it is not valid for air travel So you cannot use it to travel internationally by air. A lot of people think that the passport card is good, it's convenient, it's small, it's cheaper. However, it will not allow you to fly to Europe to South America or any other destination by air.

So it's really not worth it to get it. And there have been stories of people who thought that they could use a passport card to fly internationally by air. They got to the airport and their whole itinerary was canceled because they had to passport card. And this is how the two differ. On the left, you'll see a US passport, that's the passport book. And then on the right is a passport card.

Like I said, it's small, it's cute. It's convenient looking, however, it won't really get you far. So here's a fun passport fact before we get started. In the US There are currently more than 130 million valid passports in circulation each year it seems like more and more people are applying For their passport, and now, there are millions, hundreds of millions of passports currently in circulation. So how do you actually apply for a passport for the first time. So there are two categories.

There are people who are 16 years old and over and there are people who are under 16. So first I'm going to talk about people 16 years old and over. First, you need an application, the basic passport application, it's called the ds 11, you need a valid form of ID. And a little later, I'm going to show you the website for the State Department. And it tells you all of the valid forms of acceptable ID. So you need that Id as well as a copy of it a photocopy of the front and the back.

You need proof of citizenship. So we know that a country only gives a passport to a person who is a citizen of that country. So you need proof of citizenship, either a birth certificate or if you're a naturalized citizen. There's Prove to show that you're naturalized. You need a passport photo. And these are very specific then it's not any photo, any selfie or any picture that someone happens to take for you.

There are specific dimensions poses that you have to have rules about jewelry and glasses, and even the background. And it has to be a certain size. So you have to make sure that your photograph meets these standards. Most local drugstores or convenience stores like CVS and Walgreens and things like that. They actually take passport photos and they print them out and they're perfect for the passport application. For people 16 years old and over a passport is valid for 10 years.

So that's a pretty long time right? And you can actually apply at what are called acceptance facilities or passport agencies. Acceptance facilities are specific like specific post offices where you can do the application you can give The payment, and the other photos and supporting documentation, or there are what's called passport agencies. And I'll explain a little bit more about that later. But these are the two places where you can apply for a passport. Now, if you're under 16, that's a different story in terms of what you need and how long it lasts.

This is basically someone who's still considered a child. So in addition to the application and the proof of citizenship, you actually need both parents permission to apply for the passport. So that means you need both parents to accompany you to turn in this information either at a passport acceptance facility or agency or you need a parent and then the second parents who give their notarized signature on a special form that says that yes, you are allowed they give you permission to get this passport. Now, if there's only one parent in the picture either because only one parent has guardianship or so is the sole custodian or another parent passed away you need documentation, legal documentation of that. So proof of guardianship, whether it's a judge's order a legal order, or proof that the other parent is legally not bound to get permission, and then you need the passport photos.

Interestingly enough, you can also get your passport photos at some of the acceptance facilities. So when I recently got my two year old daughter, her passport, she was one and a half at the time. We actually took her photo at the post office where we applied for her, and they were really good at working with kids. They had a white background, and the agent actually had me hold her on my shoulders. And he took the picture so it looked like she was sitting up by herself. So if you're under 16 years old, the passport is only valid for five years years, so you have to get it renewed every five Yours.

And you can actually get a passport for a child as early as you know as soon as you get the birth certificate to prove citizenship, so that could be as early as two or three weeks old for the child. Now, if you already have a passport, like I said, They're either valid for 10 years or five years. And that means if you continue to be someone who travels throughout your lifetime, you're eventually going to have to renew your passport. renewal is a bit easier, you can do it by mail. And what you would need is your old passport so that proves that you were issued a passport in the first place and had all of the documentation like proof of citizenship and so forth. You need an application, the one for renewal is called the ds 82.

You need again your passport photos and the fee of $110. And you can do it by mail or at one of the acceptance facilities which is usually different types of post offices. So we already said the fee for the renewal which is $110. The other passports when you're applying new for people who are over 16, it's $135. If you're under 16, it's $105. Now, the typical passport takes about four to six weeks to arrive in the mail to you, sometimes a little bit less, but they tell you four to six weeks.

If you need it quicker than that, if you need what is called an expedited passport, it will come in about two to three weeks, maybe a little bit sooner, and you would have to pay $60 extra on top of the regular fee either 135 or 105 plus $60, extra and $15 and 45 cents for the overnight delivery fee. Now there's something called adding pages to your passport. This is when you might be someone who just travels and travels and travels. Your passport pages are being filled up with visas or credit customs stamps at borders that you enter the country at. And before you know it, you still have five more years on your passport, but you hardly have any pages left. So you can add pages and that cost $82.

And what you do is there's, you know, some forms that you fill out. And the State Department actually tells you to keep track of your paper, your your passport, and when you see yourself having just about four pages left anywhere from two to four pages left, then you should go ahead and add some extra pages. There are many countries that in order to get a visa for that country, they want you to have at least two pages blank or free in your passport. So you don't want to get caught with not enough pages in your passport. That actually almost happened to me. I only had three pass pages in my passport left and the airline agents were really concerned about letting me on the plane because they weren't sure that when I arrived at my destination in South Africa that I wish that they would let me enter because I was cutting it so close with the number of blank pages I had in my passport.

So adding pages is something really convenient. It's cheaper and easier than getting a completely new passport. So here's another another fun passport fact, in the US between 1996 and 2016. So they track each year, the number of passports that are issued 2007 and 2016 saw the highest number of passports issued. So each year each of those years, more than 18 million new passports were issued. That's a lot of passports, right.

But we still think that more people need to get them I think overall, about 40% fewer than 40% of eligible Americans actually have a passport. So here are some things to keep in mind about your passport as you're traveling for most places, is two that you want to travel to internationally, they will require that you have six months validity on your passport. So that means that your passport cannot be expiring in less than six months. That's because many countries don't want you to come to their country your passport expires and then it's hard for you to fly or travel or get out of the country. And so for most places, either if you're applying for a visa or if the country allows you to get the visa when you actually land in the country, before you can get on the plane, the airline agents will look at your passport and they want to make sure that you have six months validity on your passport.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, most places want to make sure that you before you get on the plane that you have two pages free free blank pages in your passport in order to get your custom stamps or visa stamps once you arrive. Now I always recommend that people Take a picture and keep a photocopy of your passport. And that's for two reasons. One is in case you lose it, and you need to go to your local embassy, it's much easier to get a replacement passport if you have a photocopy. The second reason is many countries need you to have some form of ID. Now if you don't have national ID for that country, you need to have some ID that proves who you are and where you're from.

And that the best ID to have is a passport. But most times you don't actually want to walk around with your passport, it's a little too risky. You don't want to lose it. You don't want it to be stolen so you can carry this photocopy of the passport with you. So those are two reasons to have a photocopy. I also save a digital photo of my passport, the front page with my name and information and so forth.

I save it on my cloud, I use Google Drive, some people might use iCloud or something else. That way, if you even lose the photocopy or if something happens To that physical photocopy, you have it stored in your drive for easy access. The other thing I recommend is that you use a passport cover. Here's a cool picture of a passport cover. This way you protect your passport. You know, it's kind of a flimsy document if you're constantly taking it in and out of your bag and customs officials are looking at it and going through the pages.

So just to keep it nice and neat. This is something that's going to have to last you about 10 years. It's nice to get a cover and there's so many covers that you get you can get from low end all the way to expensive high end. So here's some other things to keep in mind if you need assistance. The State Department website is a treasure of information about how to apply for your passport, how to renew your passport and what to do if it's lost or stolen, when you're abroad or when you're at home. So you should keep this website handy.

The other thing is to know about About the local or is what they're sometimes called regional passport agencies. These are different from the acceptance facilities which are more like places where they just process the application. The passport agencies are places where you can be seen urgently, these are where the passport officials are. And for example, if you lost your passport and you are leaving in two days, you can often be seen in person there to get your passport quickly because you already have your itinerary or if you need it, expedite it but quicker than two weeks. So in order to get an appointment for a passport agency to be seen in person, you have to go to that travel that state.gov website and you have to have proof of an actual airline itinerary. So you have to have proof that you have purchased your ticket which is why you need to be seen urgently or you have to have proof that you're trying to apply for a visa within the next couple of weeks and that you need to have your passport.

So these are places where you can be seen urgently, you can get an appointment online, and you have to show proof why it's urgent. There have been some cases even though for the most part, they say on the website, you can't be seen the same day. There have been some cases and I've even heard of somewhere. You can be seen the same day. Like I mentioned, for example, if you're supposed to be traveling tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, some freak accident happens maybe your home is robbed or something happens and you lose your passport, you were completely ready, and now you've lost your passport. There are cases where people have actually gone to their local passport agency and have been seen that same day and gotten their passport replaced.

So the website this travel state.gov website tells you where these passport agencies are. Sometimes you might have to drive to a different city. They're not in every single city. The other thing that's helpful is is an app called, it's easy. And it's an app that can help you sort of break down some of this information about applying or renewing your passport and can even help you use take selfie pictures or have pictures taken with your cell phone that meet the dimension and other measurement required requirements for a passport photo. And then you can send it in from that app.

So it's a pretty cool app if you're really into using apps to help you navigate different websites and so forth. So another thing to think about or to keep in mind while you're abroad, is that you can actually renew your passport at an embassy. So for example, what if you've moved abroad and you're an expat or you've gone to travel and for some reason, you've stayed much longer than expected. You were expecting to stay somewhere for three months and maybe you got you know, you fell in love or something happened and now you're in that country or you're abroad for seven months or so forth in your passport is nearing, being expired, you can actually go to your local embassy at the country that you're in and you can renew your passport. It's the same fees as I mentioned before, and it's it's not you know, as crowded, you can actually get it done pretty quickly.

The other thing is, you can actually replace lost or stolen passports if you've lost or had your passport stolen while you're abroad. You can actually have that replaced at the closest embassy and that goes back to why I said it's important to keep a photocopy and even a photocopy of your license and other important ID with you. And the fee for that is a little bit more for replacing it. It's $140 this is another really important number so I gave you the State Department website. This is their toll free number where you can get information about making an appointment for a passport agency. You can even track the status Your passport application.

More importantly, you can even report a lost or stolen passport. This is important because you don't want someone to find your passport and then try to alter it and use it or something like that. So this will be important too. You can use this number to report a lost or stolen passport. So as I said earlier, I think it's important for everyone to get a passport, but you know, I thought it would be nice to list some of the places where you as citizens can actually travel without a passport, and these are considered US territories. So Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.

These are places where you can actually go with just a regular driver's license ID and you don't need a passport. But hey, my tip is still get a passport no matter what. And getting a passport is important because there's something called the real Id act, you may have heard a little bit about it. And this was something a federal act that was passed after 911, where the federal government won it states to have certain standards and criteria for their state ID, for example, their state driver's license, or non driver's license ID. And there were some states about nine states, where though the government said that those states did not meet the REAL ID act standards, therefore, are in starting in early 2018. If you are from one of these nine states, and what you can do is go to the State Department website that I just listed, and there's some information about these states.

If you are from one of these states, your state Id like your driver's license might not be valid for air travel including domestic air travel, so From what we know now you can basically travel anywhere within the United States without a passport right? All you need is a valid form of ID, such as a valid driver's license. But starting in early 2018, if you're from one of these nine states, that doesn't meet the REAL ID Act requirements, you actually may not be able to use that state ID even for domestic air travel. So you want to make sure to go to the travel state.gov website and follow up on information about that. But I always say the bottom line is get a passport. If you think you might at any point step on an airplane to go anywhere.

You should get a passport. So speaking of getting a passport, many people often ask, are there situations where you actually cannot get a passport where you won't where your application will be denied or your passport revoked. So there are some of those cases. Recently, the US Congress, Congress passed a bill that says if you owe large amounts of money to the IRS, so you have huge tax debt, that you actually cannot get a passport. And so it's not just that you owe back taxes, it has to be a certain amount. So it's over $50,000.

And there has to be a process that the IRS goes through where they've contacted you, they've made you aware. And, you know, it's not just anybody that they say, you can't get a passport, but there's a process that if you have this large amount of back IRS debt, they can do what's called certify you as having this debt and send that information to the State Department, which is responsible for issuing passports. So if you have been certified by the IRS is having this large debt that you haven't made any payment arrangements or anything on, then the State Department actually would not issue Use a passport, if you apply. Another case is if you have a large amount of child support debt, actually, it's not that huge of a number, right $2,500. So if you owe 20 $500 or more, and that information if you are on a formal Child Support arrangement, that information is reported to the state.

So if you're not making those child support payments, that information has also been sent to the State Department so that if you try to apply for a passport, you actually the State Department would check to make sure when you apply that you don't have this bad debt. And if you don't make any arrangements to clear that debt up, you actually won't get a passport. Another case is some convicted felons, specifically some drug felonies. Those individuals are not able to get passports and if you're on if you're out of prison on parole, you would have to get permission Your parole officer would have to actually make sure that you're able to get the passport. So there's a process that you would have to go through. So if you fall into one of these categories, you would, you know, want to get more information through the State Department and find out what you can do to remedy these situations so that you can get a passport.

So here's another passport fact, California in New York are the states that issued the most passports in 2016. In some ways, that's not really surprising. These are two of our largest states, and most populous states, but also there are coastal states, one on the west coast and one on the east coast. And these are usually the places where you think of people from so many different parts of the world are very cosmopolitan and people who tend to travel a lot. So these are the states that have the highest number of passports issued. 2016 so here's your challenge for this lecture is know your passport.

So number one, obviously, if you don't have a passport, you need to apply for one ASAP. Go back to the information that was listed, go to the websites or call and you can ask questions, whatever it is have your documentation and go and apply for a passport, remember is the application your ID, proof of citizenship, your passport, pictures and your feet. Okay, so if you don't have your passport, apply for one, or if yours has expired several months ago or a year ago and you just never got it renewed, get it renewed. Okay. Number two, if you do have a valid passport, you should go and actually check the validity and write down the date when it's going to expire and the date that six months before expiration that way that'll give you an idea of what Actually when you need to start applying for your new passport.

The other thing is write down the phone number and website to report your missing passport. So that's the State Department website and the phone number, the toll free number that was listed earlier on the slides, make sure that you write those things down so that you have them handy. And there's a little worksheet attached to this lecture where you can write all of this information down. All right, so happy path, porting