How to Check Your Passport Application Status

By the Between the News desk · researched with AI tools, checked and edited by a human editor

Check online at passportstatus.state.govYou'll need: last name, date of birth, last 4 digits of SSNStatus typically doesn't appear until about 2 weeks after applyingEmail updates are available if you provided an email on your applicationSource: travel.state.gov

👁Decoded

Checking a passport application's status is a self-service process, and it doesn't require calling anyone if you're patient enough to wait for the tracker to actually populate.

The official tool is passportstatus.state.gov, available online 24/7. To pull up your status, you'll need three pieces of information: your last name, date of birth, and the last four digits of your Social Security number. If your last name includes a hyphen or apostrophe, and a search doesn't return results, try entering it both with and without those characters — formatting mismatches are a common reason searches come back empty.

Timing matters before you check: it can take up to 2 weeks from the day you submit your application before any status even appears in the system as "in process" at a passport agency. Checking earlier than that typically just returns no results, not an error.

If you provided an email address on your application, the State Department will proactively send status update emails as your application moves through processing — you don't have to keep manually checking the tracker if you'd rather just wait for a notification. You can also update the email address on file at any point if needed.

The status labels themselves are straightforward: "in process" means your application is currently being reviewed at a passport agency, and later stages progress to "approved" and eventually "mailed." If something looks off or you need to change your mailing address, the State Department's phone line at 877-487-2778 handles those specific issues.

“Checking your passport status before the 2-week mark usually just returns nothing — it's not that something's wrong, the tracker simply hasn't caught up yet.”