US Passport Name Change 2026 — DS-82 vs DS-11, Evidence and Fees

Which Form and Why

The State Department does not have a single name-change form. It has three, and which one you use depends on facts about your existing passport rather than on facts about your name. Two questions settle it: how long ago was the passport issued, and does it still qualify for mail renewal?

If the passport was issued less than a year ago and your name has since changed by marriage or court order, you use Form DS-5504, the application for a correction or a limited-passport name change. It carries no application fee when used inside that first year, and expedited service is optional at $60.

If more than one year has passed since either your passport was issued or your name was legally changed, you use Form DS-82, the standard mail renewal, and pay the $130 application fee. You are simply renewing, with the new name and the evidence attached.

If the passport does not qualify for mail renewal at all, you apply in person on Form DS-11 and pay the full first-time price including the $35 acceptance fee. That covers books issued more than 15 years ago, books issued when the holder was under 16, damaged books, and books reported lost or stolen. The lost passport guide covers that last category separately.

The One-Year Rule

The one-year rule is the single most useful thing to know about this process. The department asks whether your name changed less than one year after your passport was issued, and it asks whether the passport itself is less than one year old. When both are true, the correction is effectively free.

Practical consequence: if you marry and realize within a few months that your passport is in your maiden name, deal with it immediately. Waiting until the passport is over a year old converts a free correction into a $130 renewal, and waiting until it stops qualifying for mail renewal converts that into $165 plus an appointment.

Online renewal only supports certain applicants. If your name has changed you may still be able to renew online only where the department’s eligibility rules allow it — in most name-change cases the mail route with DS-82 and the certified document is the safe path, because the online system expects the name to be unchanged. Confirm current eligibility on travel.state.gov rather than assuming.

When You Must Use Form DS-11

Form DS-11 is the in-person application, and a name change pushes you onto it whenever the underlying passport no longer qualifies for renewal. The list is short and absolute.

• Your most recent passport was issued more than 15 years ago.
• Your most recent passport was issued before you turned 16.
• Your passport is damaged — peeling pages, water damage, a missing chip read, or a illegible laminate.
• Your passport was lost or stolen and has been reported with Form DS-64.
• You never held a US passport.

For a name change on DS-11 you must show a valid government photo ID in your new name, and complete the marriage or name-change details section on page two of the form. Where the applicant has no photo ID in the new name yet, bring the certified name change document together with an ID in the old name and be prepared to explain the sequence — the department accepts a chain of documents as long as each link is certified.

Bring the old passport as well. Even a damaged or expired book is surrendered at the appointment, because the department cancels it and keeps it. Surrendering it is not optional and does not reduce the fee.

If the in-person requirement is triggered only by damage you could have avoided, take it as a lesson for the next renewal: a book with a separated cover or a ripped page cannot be renewed by mail, and the difference in cost is the $35 acceptance fee plus the time spent booking an appointment.

Evidence of a Legal Name Change

The department wants the original or a certified copy of the legal document that changed your name. Photocopies and notarized copies of the underlying document are not substitutes for certification.

Names must line up across your evidence chain. The name on your new ID, the name on the marriage certificate and the name you are asking for on the passport should form a traceable sequence. If your birth certificate was filed more than a year after your birth, secondary evidence may be required for identity purposes — that is a separate rule from the name change itself, but it is one of the reasons applications get held.

For a divorce, make sure the decree actually addresses the name. Some decrees restore a former name, others are silent, and a silent decree does not change anything by itself. Where the decree is silent, you need a separate court order.

Bring the original document to the appointment and a copy. With mail renewal, submit the original certified document with DS-82 and the department returns it. Anything in a foreign language needs a certified English translation alongside the original.

What a Name Change Costs

The fee follows the form. There is no separate charge for the name change itself.

Two separate payments are required for DS-11: the application fee goes to the Department of State and the $35 acceptance fee goes to the facility. Both are by check or money order. Mail renewals take a single payment.

Expedited service reduces processing to roughly 2 to 3 weeks against a routine 4 to 6 weeks, before mailing time in either direction. Whether it is worth $60 depends entirely on when you travel — if your trip is more than six weeks out, routine is usually fine.

Use the passport renewal fee calculator to total a household of name changes before you write the checks, and confirm the amounts on travel.state.gov on the day you file.

Name on Your Ticket vs Your Passport

For international travel your airline ticket and your passport should show the same name, because that is what border control compares when you scan your boarding pass against your passport. A mismatch is the classic reason a traveler is pulled aside at check-in.

Do not travel on a passport that does not match your booking without telling the airline first. Contact the carrier and ask them to correct the ticket to match your passport, providing the certified document that links the two names. Most airlines will realign a ticket to your passport with the right paperwork, but policies and charges vary by carrier, so raise it as soon as the name changes rather than at the gate.

Sequencing avoids most of the problem. If you know a wedding or a court date is coming and a trip follows soon after, either travel on the old name and change documents afterwards, or change the passport first and reissue the ticket. What you must not do is travel with a passport in one name and a ticket in another while hoping nobody notices.

Domestic travel is a different regime. Domestic US flights do not compare your ID against a passport specifically, but the name on your ID must match your boarding pass under federal identification rules. The travel itinerary builder keeps the document names in one place when you are coordinating several bookings.

Global Entry, TSA PreCheck and Other Records

Changing your passport does not automatically propagate to trusted traveler programs, airline profiles or your Social Security record. Each has its own update path, and skipping them produces mismatches at the airport.

• Global Entry: sign in to the Trusted Traveler Programs website or the Trusted Traveler app, which replaced the Global Entry mobile app in September 2026, and use the Update Documents option to file your new passport. Per CBP guidance, a passport update that involves a name change must be finalized at a Global Entry enrollment center, so plan a visit rather than assuming the online update completes it.
• TSA PreCheck: update your name with your enrollment provider before your membership renews. TSA notes that members must update their name prior to renewing online, that name changes can take up to 45 days, and that a member who changes name without updating may have to renew in person.
• Airline and hotel profiles: update the name on your frequent flyer and loyalty accounts, since a mismatch there can block online check-in even when your documents are correct.
• Social Security and your bank: update your Social Security record first where possible, because many institutions use it as the anchor document.

Do these updates in the order that produces usable documents: certified name change document, then passport, then Social Security, then trusted traveler programs, then commercial accounts. Trying to update Global Entry before you hold the new passport wastes an appointment, because the enrollment center wants the physical document.

Allow slack in your schedule. If a name change takes up to 45 days to clear TSA PreCheck and Global Entry requires an in-person visit, a trip six weeks after a wedding can easily fall inside that window. Either start early or accept traveling without the trusted traveler benefit for that trip.

Timeline

Processing times for the passport itself are unchanged by a name change: routine service runs about 4 to 6 weeks and expedited about 2 to 3 weeks, measured from the day the department receives your application, and mailing time of up to two weeks each way applies to mail-in submissions.

The bottleneck is usually the certified document, not the passport. Order the certified marriage certificate or certified court order before you start, because the passport package cannot go out without it. Many couples discover their certificate takes longer to arrive than their travel window allows.

Check status at passportstatus.state.gov using your last name, date of birth and the last four digits of your Social Security number, and sign up for email updates. If you have a fixed departure date, work backwards with the visa timeline calculator, then escalate to a passport agency appointment once you are inside 14 calendar days.

Frequently Asked Questions