Interesting data:
Wish we had seen more takes about this trend. pic.twitter.com/zvQVVi75q9
— Conor Sen (@conorsen) December 28, 2023
What surprises me about this is not that passport holding has risen so much but that it was so low as recently as 30 years ago: There were only 7 million passport holders in 1989. That doubled by 1991 and doubled again by 1995.
Roughly speaking, this means that about 3-4% of American adults owned a passport in 1989. Doesn't that seem startlingly low? I would have guessed double that for business travelers alone.
Here's another oddity: after quadrupling between 1989-95, over the next 27 years the number of passport holders went up more than 350% while the number of overseas travelers went up only 150%:
During the pandemic, international travel collapsed but passport holding just kept on increasing at the same rate as always. Odd. I suppose part of this might be attributed to the popularity of having a passport as ID rather than for travel. Is that a thing?
You'll notice a small upward bump in passport holding in 2007-09. This is probably in anticipation of new rules that took effect in 2009 requiring a passport for travel to Canada and Mexico. However, the effect is small and passport growth continued apace after that. It doesn't explain much.
I believe it was when Hillary took as SOS (2009-) that one could get a passport from the USPS- that helped matters a lot. Nowadays one can renew by mail so the whole process has become much easier. Since we don’t have a national identity cards (which would help with voting, thanks Republicans), I also pay a small fee to get a passport card which works as an official id.
Which would make that when Henry Kissinger was Secretary of State 🙂
https://www.uspsoig.gov/reports/audit-reports/passport-application-acceptance-operations
Thanks for the correction - maybe the program was expanded?
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"I suppose part of this might be attributed to the popularity of having a passport as ID rather than for travel. Is that a thing?"
Yes. Especially for domestic travel, and prior to Real ID driver's licenses it was also necessary for certain other things where secure ID was required.
If one ignores it going flat/a little down at that time...
Grrr, formating...
Re: Real ID requirement for domestic air travel.
driver licenses and state ID cards have been upgraded in all 50 states (plus DC etc.) so they meet RealID standards.
At least in MN Real ID is an option, and it requires more documentation the first time at least.
They can take the real id star away, too, which is a pain.
I think more people envision themselves traveling internationally. During the pandemic a lot of people continued to plan for future travel, and started preparing for it by getting passports.
I do know some people who got passports for domestic travel. We had some Real ID rollout issues in my state, and that led a few people to just get the passport as a backup to their driver's license.
Passports last years. Get a passport for a college trip or honeymoon, be an international traveler for that year--then not again until you retire, but you'll still be a passport holder for many years after you used it. And it's way easier to keep renewing it before it expires, if you remember....
It isn't terribly difficult to renew it even if it is expired. First did that in the mid-late 1990s using a passport issued in 1978.
Ten years. You do need a new photo and a bunch of money each time so it's not just a matter of re-upping.
Five years for the kiddies.
post 9/11 Americans needed a government issued ID or passport to travel domestically by air. I know a few millennials that don't drive or have a government issued ID so they use their passport for domestic air travel.
That's my sister!
...although she originally got it to travel to France as a child.
Starting in 2009 alot of Americans probably got passports specifically so they could travel to Mexico and Canada, which are by far the countries most often visited by Americans. You would need to plot the number of passport holders against international travel INCLUDING Canada and Mexico to have a fair comparison.
Yes, that could be the main explanation. Before that time, no passport was needed to travel to Mexico or Canada so people going to those places didn't need one.
If travel to Mexico and Canada is the reason, why is the growth in passports mostly linear at the same rate of growth both before and after 2009, except for a jump in 2006?
Passports are now required for travel to Mexico and Canada; they're an option for domestic air travel that will definitely be accepted no matter what happens with RealID in your state; they're proof of citizenship that can be used when you take a new job and can't locate your birth certificate or other documentation; they're pretty much guaranteed to be acceptable as voter ID. All of these are reasons why passports would be more desirable now.
Also, y'know, we live in a country with a growing fascist movement, and everybody who isn't bone stupid has at least briefly considered the possibility that it might be necessary to flee at some point. I don't know how many people have gotten passports on that consideration alone, but my kid had one from infancy, many years before we did any international travel as a family, and "be prepared" was the principal reason why.
You're literally a second class citizen if you don't hold a passport - you have less freedom. I think it's insane *not* to have one. And it's infuriating that they cost money - I would love to see a candidate propose a free-passport policy.
Since I was born outside of the US, I had a passport at birth. That one expired after a couple of years (the photo in it is not a good representation of what I look like today), and I didn't get another one until I started traveling overseas more or less regularly in 1986. I've had one continuously since then, with my current one set to expire in 2026.
OK I have a funny story about this. I was born overseas when my dad worked for the UN in the 60's and back then, a baby was added by literally just stapling a picture into my mom's passport. Fast forward 14 years and I need a passport so my dad could take me back to Europe. They said I had to turn in the passport I already had, which was my mom's, and the picture was a baby (me) in swaddling clothes with just my nose and half my face poking out when I was a month old or something. I give it to the post office guy and he says, "this you?" Yes sir!
It could have been anybody, but that's how I got my first real passport.
People are getting ready to move to Canada?
In the recent past returning from Mexico and Canada did not require a passport. I believe this changed after 9/11. 30 years ago I flew back to the US from Mazatlan with only a drivers license.
From US Customs:
All U.S. citizens need U.S. passport books if re-entering by air. Land and sea border crossings accept additional travel documents, such as U.S. Passport cards and Trusted Traveler cards.
I'm not near as surprised as Kevin at how low the %age used to be. Up through the 20th century there was a lot of near-abroad travel an American could do without a passport, and getting to where you really needed one was an expense outside the bounds of a middle-class vacation.
Between the decreases in air fare (making recreational transoceanic travel accessible to a broad class) and the tightened passport requirements for intra-American and Caribbean travel, it's not so surprising that the trend is up up up.
Also the application process now is a lot less arduous/time-consuming than in 20th century days. Last time I re-upped mine (I had one from 1990s business travel originally) I also threw in an application for my 20-year-old, just so she'd have one if the need arose.
Bingo! Good answer!
I'm also not as surprised as Kevin.vI know US citizens travel internationally at a very low rate compared to other affluent countries. In Asia you see far more Europeans than Americans and in Europe you see more Asians.
Just returned to the country using global entry. Walked up to the automated kiosk and before I could scan my passport it took one look at me, recognized who I was, and flashed green, at which point an attendant yelled at me that I was good to go and to move along. Very convenient, but I bit unsettling that the government can identify me so easily.
Global entry was worth every penny and more for our entry into JFK (the notorious Terminal 1) in September, since the regular passport control line was a literal hell on earth. We got through in less than 5 minutes, and there was almost no one at the luggage carousel when our bags came out because most of those poor souls on our flight were still on that fucking passport control line.
Then again, the TSA precheck line at SAN 3 weeks ago may have actually been longer than the regular line. At lease we didn't have to take off our shoes.
One comment about the requirement for passports for Canada and Mexico. Initially (2004) you only needed passports for air travel not going through land crossings. It was 2009 when everyone needed passports to travel between Mexico, Canada and the US.
As soon as Trump won I got my passport so I could escape if need be. It took 3 weeks. I will likely get it renewed when he wins again. It better not take longer than 2016, Biden.
Since you don't seem to know how long a passport lasts, I'm not sure I believe you actually have a passport.
It took us about nine months.
International travel is expensive and the US is a big country, so most people travel internationally rarely or not at all. It doesn't surprise me that so few people had passports in 1989, and it doesn't surprise me that it's increased since then, as increasing per capita GDP combined with smaller families means more people can afford to travel.
Passports are cool.
I didn't have a passport until about 1994, and I had been in the Navy for 6 years at that point, travelling all over the place. I could get around just fine with my military ID card.
I got my first passport in Hong Kong. I wonder how many get their first passport outside of the country?
Travel overseas isn't that much more expensive than domestic travel. I don't know if this has always been true, but people who'd travel anyway are realizing the only barrier to seeing the world is lack of a passport.
For domestic travel the cost is usually incremental while for overseas travel you have to put up most of the cost ahead of time, I think is the limiting factor.
W Bush did, and Trump tried to, take passports away from trans people.
Which is the only reason I have one.
Also, you can't cross the Canadian or Mexican border without a crossing card anymore, so I needed it for that. I missed a chance to see Niagara from the Canadian side and I'm not going to miss that chance again.
People have mentioned the need to have a passport to cross into Canada and Mexico introduced in 2009, I think, but along with that was another innovation, the passport card, which only works for Canada, Mexico, and boat crossings to some Caribbean islands, I think.
But passport cards are awesome as secondary ID when it's needed. Much easier to carry around and when I go overseas, I carry both, reasoning that if my passport book got lost/stolen it would be easier to replace the passport book at the consulate with a passport card in my hand.
So I wonder how much of the uptick is the new form of passport cards, which aren't "real" passports but might figure into the stats?