American Passport Fees Set To Soar

(NewsCore) - Americans who have been procrastinating about getting or renewing their passports should get moving because fees are rising soon, MarketWatch reported Saturday.

Adult passport book fees will jump to $135 from $100 while those for minors will increase to $105 from $85 starting July 13.

Renewals fees on adult passports will shoot up to $110 from $75, according to the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs. Twenty-four other fees, ranging from judicial services to reporting the births of American children born abroad, also are changing.

Blame it on technology. The "switch to the e-passport with the chip and the additional security features are what is increasing the costs," said John Echard, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs. "It's a lot more expensive to make passports now than it used to be."

Since October 2006 new passports and renewals have an electronic chip embedded in the cover that carries all the information in the passport as well as facial-recognition data. The passport picture is digitally mapped and stored on the chip and when the book is swiped, the information shows up on a computer screen for the screener.

The covers are considerably thicker than the old-style passport, and the pages adorned with historic Americana sketches. There is an international symbol on the cover that alerts screeners that it's an e-passport.

There's also a new charge that frequent travelers won't like: $82 for additional passport visa pages. It used to be free but Echard said it's a time-consuming process to add pages, which is done by trained staff by hand.

Passports typically have 24 pages but frequent travelers can request 52 pages at the onset free of charge.

Read more: MarketWatch

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