They also have overnight services. If you call your passport office and tell them your situation they will give you the name of an company that will walk your paperwork through the system. It does cost. We did this a few weeks ago for a friend that was going with us to Belize in just 10 days time. We did the 4 day turn around and the total for the passport fees and service was about $300. I know that is a lot but if you are worried it might be worth the money to put your mind at ease.

On this same subject, do you have to surrender your old passport to get a new one? I love my old passport with all of the stamps and visas. I would like to keep it. Luckily mine isn't due to expire for 4 more years.

Uh you don't have to surrender if you lost it. If it is one of the new ones that has the chips in it they just deactivate it. We have some passports that belonged to family members that have passed on. They are treasures that my children love to look through and see all the places their family members went to, when they were there and so on.

Usually if there is an issue with the six-month expiration it is not with immigration in the destination country but with the airline you are flying in on. A gate agent with a stickler for detail can deny you boarding.

Does this happen often? No. Does it ever happen? Yes. There was a posting about this a few weeks ago on the Lonely Planet Thorntree board from a person who had been denied boarding on a flight to Panama by the airline, due to the fact the passport expired in less than six months. A friend flying from Florida to Belize on American a few years ago was almost denied boarding but was able to talk the agent out of it, arguing that it didn't apply since he was a Canadian. The agent bought it.

...

On expedited processing, many U.S. Congresspersons provide expedited passport processing as a constituent service -- this may not be quite as fast as the expedited service you pay for, but it's free (except perhaps for the cost of Fedexing.) You can call your Congressional Representative's field office and see if that's a service offered to voters. (If not, maybe it's time for a new Congressperson.) And ~$15 bucks is a heck of a lot better than $300.

...

You do send in your old passport when reapplying, but you get the passport back, either deactivated electronically or with a few holes punched in it.

--Lan Sluder

ExOkie,

When you apply for the new one you have to send your old one back. They will return it with holes punched in it like Lan says. Don't worry they are small holes and the various exit and entry stamps are still readable and able to bring back many fond memories.

About the length of time they have to be good for. It's just like a lot of things having to do with Belize one site gives information (like I posted) another gives info like Moose posted!
He is probably right - after all you learn (when living up in the cold north) that you NEVER argue with a Moose!

But after all that is one of the things that makes Belize, Belize and I love it all the more for just this type of thing!

Byron

AlaskaMan, I'll back that up. I just renewed our passports and it took about 18 days. I did not use the expedited service. I used ordinary mail, certified with a return receipt. Not sure if that was necessary. It was easy although I did have reservations about the process. There website makes it easy. http://travel.state.gov/passport/forms/forms_847.html Good Luck, D. O. A.

Thanks WTIB - Not looking forward to the RFID passport either. Hopefully in 4 yrs I'll be living in Belize and won't need it.

All that is needed is a valid passport for dates in Belize.
I had absolutely no problem last year with a passport that expired 2 wks. after I got home.

Just as an update to the original post, I sent the passport documents in on the 4th or 5th of last month, and we received the passports back in the mail yesterday, so just a little over a month and we had them back without paying for expedited service etc. They appear to have updated the security features as well in the newer version as opposed to mine which is around 3 years old now....