On the State Division, a rising demand for passports has led the Bureau of Consular Affairs to rethink its buyer expertise technique.
In fiscal 2025, the division issued over 27 million passport books and playing cards, its highest quantity in a single 12 months up to now.
Matt Pierce, deputy assistant secretary for passports, mentioned throughout Federal Information Community’s CX Trade 2026 that regardless of that report quantity, the division is protecting processing instances at report lows.
“It’s really been a great honor to lead our teams through record demand, implement reforms under the Trump administration that have resulted in the lowest processing times in years, and build on major initiatives like online passport renewal, all while maintaining the highest standard of security and service for American citizens,” Pierce mentioned.
Addressing the rising demand for passports
In 1990, about 5% of Individuals had a passport. At this time, greater than half of the U.S. inhabitants are passport-holders.
“That’s going to continue to grow. We’re not seeing any decrease in demand. So we need to find ways to maximize the point of decision, to make sure that we’re able to give the adjudicator all the tools they need, so we avoid rework and we avoid multiple people touching the same application,” Pierce mentioned.
State rolled out its on-line passport renewal course of in September 2024. Proper now, the platform handles greater than half of all on-line passport renewals.
About 94% of on-line passport renewal customers say the method was straightforward to finish and rated it favorably. To additional enhance the method, the division is including extra strong monitoring options to assist clients perceive how quickly they will count on to obtain their passport and the paperwork they’ve submitted.
“Customers oftentimes would get their new passport, and they’re like, ‘Well, where’s my birth certificate? Where’s my naturalization certificate?’ And so we’ve added some status tracking on that as well. That’s been really key to reduce anxiety from folks who want their documents back but also to reduce calls into our call center,” Piece mentioned.
Utilizing suggestions loop to scale back burden on passport adjudicators
The division continues to make use of buyer suggestions to refine the net passport renewal platform and to make the method extra seamless.
“One of the most impactful changes has been the elimination of small, repetitive manual tasks that once slowed down application processing,” Pierce mentioned. “It sounds simple, but these button clicks or manual tasks that magnify 25-plus million times — it makes a huge difference in the speed of throughput and capacity,” Pierce mentioned.
On the top of the COVID-19 pandemic, candidates ready for a passport handled prolonged wait instances as State handled seasonal backlogs. Candidates now solely wait about 4 to 6 weeks for routine processing.
“A few years ago, we were underwater, and we’re not anymore. We don’t intend to be ever in the future. But demand is not going down. Demand is only going to rise,” Pierce mentioned. “We need to find ways to maximize that point of decision — to make sure that we’re able to give the adjudicator all the tools they need. We avoid rework, and we avoid multiple people touching the same application. And I think tools like AI can help us do that.”
Given the delicate nature of passports, State should stability its nationwide safety mission with the crucial to course of passport purposes shortly and successfully.
“A U.S. passport is the premier travel document in the world, so we have to make sure it’s in the hands of the right folks, the Americans who are entitled to have that passport to travel with,” Piece mentioned. “Years ago, we didn’t have the tools at kind of our fingertips that we have now. So we’ve incorporated a lot of technological solutions into the process to provide tools for our frontline employees that allow for better decision-making. When they look at that application and decide that a customer is a U.S. citizen, they’re able to make that decision with confidence.”
The division can also be seeing a surge in demand for visas forward of the FIFA World Cup this summer time. Pierce mentioned passport adjudicators have volunteered to go overseas to help with visa adjudications.
“We’ve deployed a number of these folks to key posts where we’ve seen very high demand for them to assist and augment that capacity,” he mentioned.
Balancing velocity of supply and information safety
Pierce mentioned State is taking steps to verify it’s offering quick and dependable service to clients, whereas additionally guaranteeing safety is constructed into all facets of the passport vetting course of.
“We’re committed to providing the best possible service for our passport customers while safeguarding U.S. national security. This is not an either or, but rather, we must do both. To keep up with the record passport demand, we are continually transforming our processes,” he mentioned.
The division can also be sending computerized e-mail and textual content reminders, reminding people when their passports are about to run out.
“We’ve done a lot of proactive outreach to make sure that our customers are aware of the passport expiration date, aware of that some countries may require the six months of validity on your passport to travel. That’s been a really important thing,” Pierce mentioned. “In addition to spreading out the demand a little bit more throughout the year through our outreach, we also have made sure that we get through the work as quickly as possible, so we don’t let it pile up at all.”
On-line passport renewal has reworked the way in which Individuals apply for or new a passport, and State is constant to search out methods to make the method extra seamless for the general public.
“We’re never going to rest on our laurels or call it mission accomplished,” Pierce mentioned. We’ve got to bear in mind that buyer wants are altering, expertise is altering, and coverage directives are going to alter on a regular basis, and so we have to construct in, as part of our cloth as a corporation, the flexibleness and adaptableness to alter as we now have completely different challenges come our means — but additionally to anticipate the place these expertise wants are going to be sooner or later, the place the shopper wants are going to be.”
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