Applying for a Passport Outside of United States: How to Guide

Moving to another country can be an exciting adventure. There are a lot of new and wonderful things to learn from another country. If you are living abroad, you want to be assured of being able to come back to the US whenever you want. Your US passport is your little piece of home. So, if you let your passport expires, you may think it will not be easy to apply for another one. But, it is a relatively simple and painless procedure.

The Embassy or Consulate

To begin with, you need to find the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. Ask them for the relevant documentation and application forms to fill in for your passport. Each embassy and consulate has different procedures for submitting these. So, always be sure to check online or with your embassy or consulate.

Supporting Documents

There are also supporting documents you need to submit along with your application forms. These are to establish your U.S. citizenship and to verify your identity. This will make the process move forward with a bit more speed. The necessary documentation usually is your birth certificate which shows that you were indeed born in the US. If you do not have this, then you will likely be refused a United States passport. You may require to submit an affidavit along with your evidence of citizenship.

Under normal circumstances, this would not be necessary. But since you applying outside of the US, this may be an extra requirement as a supporting document. Verifying your citizenship and identity is a crucial part of applying for a passport outside of the United States. As with most other applications, there are fees. These vary from embassy to consulate so again you must check with them to make sure that you are paying the right amount.

This may seem like it is a laborious process, but the forms are quite simple to fill in and the instructions that accompany the forms are detailed and easy to read so you will be able to make sure that you don’t incorrectly fill out your application. If you do this on the internet, the United States Government’s passport site has an excellent ‘Passport Application Wizard’ that automatically ensures you fill the form out correctly.

After all your documents are checked by the consulate, you should receive your passport quite speedily.