U.S. State Department urges people whose passports expire later in 2016 to renew them now

A person holds a U.S. passport.
(Image credit: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)

If your U.S. passport expires this year or next, the State Department is asking that you don't wait too long to get it renewed.

In 2006 and 2007, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative went into effect, making it a requirement that Americans flying back to the U.S. from Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, and Bermuda have a passport. Because so many people who previously didn't need to get passports applied, "we were overwhelmed then," Michele Bond, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, told The New York Times. "We are not going to be overwhelmed again." Not only that, but more countries are starting to enforce requirements for six months' validity on a U.S. passport, Condé Nast Traveler reports.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.