New passport office coming to Cincinnati could cut your wait time

Killian Baarlaer, Cincinnati Enquirer
Updated ·1 min read

Cincinnati will soon be home to a passport agency that can expeditiously issue passports, the U.S. Department of State announced Tuesday.

Cincinnati is among six cities set to welcome a new passport agency. When the new locations are established, the total number of passport agencies in the country will rise to 35, according to a news release.

Passport agencies can process passport applications promptly, but they require customers to set an appointment and pay a $60 fee to expedite. These facilities serve customers who need to travel internationally within 14 days or need a foreign visa in the next 28 days.

Currently, the passport agencies nearest to Cincinnati are in Detroit and Chicago.

U.S. Passport
U.S. Passport

Travelers can also get passports from passport acceptance facilities, of which there are more than 7,400 nationwide. Many government offices, like post offices, libraries and clerk of courts, function as passport acceptance facilities. The Department of State advises applying for passports here if you don’t have plans to travel within three weeks.

The new passport agencies come as more and more Americans are applying for passports. Only 5% of Americans held passports in 1990; that figure has now leaped to 48%, according to the news release.

Moreover, the Department of State issued an unprecedented 24 million passports in the 2023 fiscal year.

"While we undertake steps to establish these new agencies, we are issuing more passports than ever before while maintaining our passport processing times at our pre-pandemic levels," the Department of State wrote in the release.

Where are the other new passport agencies going to be?

  • Salt Lake City, Utah.

  • Kansas City, Missouri.

  • Orlando, Florida.

  • Charlotte, North Carolina.

  • San Antonio, Texas.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ohio gets a new passport office