How to Renew Your Philippine Passport in the USA

If your Philippine passport expires and you need a new one, here’s how to renew your Philippine passport in the USA.

Philippine passports are good for a maximum of 5 years. There is a bill at the Philippine House of Representatives that seeks to extend passport validity for up to 10 years. But we don’t know yet if that bill will make it as law and when that would happen.

Determine which embassy or consulate covers your area.

Here’s a list of the Philippine Embassy and Consulates in the USA, together with their jurisdictions.

Embassy of the Philippines, Washington D.C.
1617 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington D.C. 20036 (Consular Section)
Tel # 202-467-9300

Embassy’s Consular Jurisdiction
United States of America: Alabama, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia

Outside USA: Anguilla, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Caribbean Islands (Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Turks & Caicos), Commonwealth of Jamaica, Country of Curacao, Grenada, Guadaloupe, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Republic of Haiti, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maartin, St. Martin, The Territorial Collectivity of St. Barthelemy, Trinidad and Tobago, and U.S. Virgin Islands.

Philippine Consulate General in Agana, Guam
Suite 601 & 602 ITC Bldg Marine Drive, Tamuning, Guam 96931-5880
P.O. Box 9880 Tamuning Guam, 96931
Tel # 671-646-4620/30

Consular Jurisdiction: Caroline Islands, Guam, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Wake Islands

Philippine Consulate General in Chicago
30 North Michigan Ave., Suite 2100, Chicago, IL 60602
Tel # 312-332-6458 to 59

Consular Jurisdiction: Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin

Philippine Consulate General in Honolulu
2433 Pali Highway, Honolulu, Hawaii 96817
Tel # 808-595-6316 to 19

Consular Jurisdiction: Hawaii, American Samoa, French Polynesia

Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles
3435 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90010
Tel # 213-639-0980 to 85

Consular Jurisdiction: Arizona, Texas, Southern Nevada (Nye, Las Vegas, Clark, Lincoln), New Mexico, Southern California (Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Orange, San Diego, Imperial, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Kern)

Philippine Consulate General in New York
556 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10036
Tel # 212-764-1330

Consular Jurisdiction: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont

Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco
447 Sutter St. 6th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108
Tel # 415-433-6666 to 68

Consular Jurisdiction: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Northern Nevada (Carson, Churchill, Douglas Elko, Esmeralda, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Pershing, Storie, Washoe, White Pine, Reno), Colorado, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Northern California (San Jose, Oakland, Fresno, Palo Alto, Sacramento, Stocton, Napa, Union City, San Mateo, Vallejo, Pittsburg)

Go to the Embassy or consulate that covers your state.

You don’t need to secure an appointment. Since the Embassy or Consulate need you to be there, anyway, just plan on going to the embassy or consulate that covers your jurisdiction.

We are from Tennessee and when we renewed our passport, we went to the embassy at Washington, D.C. Some of our friends, though, told us that they renewed their passports at the Consulate in Chicago, which is closer to Tennessee. But before you make your travel preparations, call or send an email to the embassy or consulate you plan to go to.

Or you can wait for an Outreach Program near you.

Every now and then, the Philippine Embassy or consulates would schedule Outreach programs for Filipino communities in different states. You can check the schedule for these outreach programs at the website of the consulate covering your area. The problem, though, is that it may take some time before the outreach program is schedule in your area.

Prepare ALL the requirements you need.

Before you even embark on the trip to the Embassy or Consulate, prepare all the requirements for the passport renewal. Here’s the list of the requirements:

• Duly-accomplished passport application form, typed or printed legibly in black or blue ink. You can download this passport application form from the website of the consulate where you’re going. You can download the Passport Application Form here IF you are renewing at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C.
• Latest passport. The Embassy will get your passport, so it will be important to scan or make a copy of your passport so you still have a copy while waiting for the new one.
• Two (2) photocopies of the photo/data page of the latest passport. Don’t forget this! It will speed up the process for you. They have a copier at the embassy at Washington, D.C. But it’s better to have everything beforehand.
• Proof that the applicant is not a US/Foreign citizen (Two [2] photocopies of any of the following: greencard, visa adjustment, notice of action, work permit). Make sure to make copies of these, too, so you have a copy.
• Self-addressed return envelope, with appropriate stamps for express or priority mail with tracking numbers via US Postal Service, if Passport is to be mailed back. For applicants from the Caribbean Islands, pre-paid mailing envelope from DHL. FedEx and UPS are expensive. I recommend getting a self-addressed return envelope from the US Postal Service. If you forgot to secure this beforehand, there is a USPS close to the Embassy in Washington, D.C., which is just a 7-minute walk away. Click here to see the directions from the Embassy. If you are a family applying for passport renewal together, they can put up to two (2) passports in one return envelope.
• Passport fee of $60.00 (non-refundable), payable in cash or money order made payable to “Embassy of the Philippines” (or “Philippine Consulate General”, if application is made at one of the Philippine Consulates General in the U.S.). Personal checks and credit cards are not accepted.

Tips for Renewing Your Passport at the Philippine Embassy at Washington DC

Plan for the trip well in advance.

If you want to travel as quickly as possible and you can afford the tickets, then just fly out to D.C. But if you have a family and you will renew your passports together, it would be better to drive. In our case, we drove for about 11 hours from Tennessee to Arlington, Virginia, where we got a hotel.

Although we drove all the way to Arlington on our way there, we broke up our trip coming back to Nashville so we could rest mid-way through the trip.

Stay with friends around the area if they’re willing to host you.

Generally, Filipinos are very accommodating of family and friends. We’ve stayed in houses of friends and family in the past 2 years that we were in the USA. If you do that, you can save around $200 in hotel costs for two nights. But be a gracious guest, too, if you do stay with friends or family. Don’t abuse and overstay your welcome.

Get a hotel outside of Washington DC.

If you don’t have family and friends near the Embassy in Washington, D.C. consider getting a hotel outside of Washington, D.C. Arlington, VA or Alexandria, VA are great places and readily accessible by the Metro. By getting a hotel outside of Washington, D.C, we saved at least $120 of two nights hotel stay.

We used Booking.com in looking for an inexpensive hotel in the area. It’s fairly easy to use and it helped us look for a nice family hotel. We stayed at a hotel that had a shuttle to the closest Metro station for free. So we ended up saving some money for that, too.

Go to the embassy early. Mondays are really busy.

If you can help it, go to the embassy at 8:30 am. I even read somewhere that on Mondays, they hold a flag-raising ceremony. That would be awesome to see. But alas, we have a 4-year old son, so we ended up missing that. Mondays are also really busy at the Embassy. So the earlier you get there, the better.

When we went there, the main person assisting Filipinos was Ms. Vicky (or Visitacion). I did not get her surname. She was jolly and helpful in spite of the stress of having too many people asking for her time. I think she was a great multi-tasker. The one who replaced her around lunchtime wasn’t as nice. (Sorry I didn’t get her name). She was raising her voice at the Filipinos inside the embassy. I was thankful she wasn’t the one who assisted us.

Prepare to spend around 2-4 hours in the area.

If you go there on a Monday, prepare to spend about 2-4 hours there. Maybe the waiting time is shorter for earlier arrivals. But we got there by 10:15 am and we were done by 2:00 PM. We were so hungry after that. Thankfully, we had some snacks for our son.

For lunch, check out the Bua DC restaurant. It has good food.

Bua DC is a Thai restaurant, which means that they do have rice, which is what most Filipinos are looking for. It is a bit pricey, but the food is really good and the servings are pretty big. Check out the directions from the Embassy here.

There is a children’s park close by.

If you also have a restless child who wants to play, there is a nearby children’s park right next to the Bua DC Restaurant. If your child needs to spend some energy, then this playground is a great way to do that.

Explore Washington, D.C.

If you come from a state that’s far from Washington, D.C. then take some time to explore the city. There are a lot of museums, parks, statues, and other landmarks to see and take selfies at. We got to see the White House, the National Mall, the Washington Memorial, and a lot of other places while we were there. But because of time limitation, we did not go to the museums.

When do we get our passports back?

It’s been 5 weeks since we applied for the renewal of our passports. According to the website of the Embassy, it takes about 8-12 weeks for the whole process to be completed. I have read in some blogs and forums that the lucky ones got their passports back within 6 weeks after they applied. But I also heard from others that it took them more than 3 months to get theirs.

All passports are sent back to the Philippines for printing and processing. Then after it is printed, they are sent back to the USA and then forwarded to the applicants. But, thankfully, the Embassy’s website has a feature that lets you know if you’re passport is ready for release, just click on the image below and you’ll be taken to the passport tracking system.

I will update this post as soon as we receive our passports back. If you have questions, hit the comments below and I will try to answer as much as I could.

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UPDATE: We received our passports back on April 19, a little over six weeks since we applied for the passport renewal. I am impressed!!