Passports; Procedures for Passport Couriers

DEPARTMENT OF STATE <CFR>22 CFR Part 54</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Public Notice 11632]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1400-AE37</RIN> <SUBJECT>Passports; Procedures for Passport Couriers</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Department of State. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of State (the Department) establishes rules for the registration program and hand delivery procedures for courier companies used by applicants to transport their passport applications, and U.S. passports issued to them, to and from participating passport agencies. This supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking, along with the original notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), is intended to continue the program that was established by prior policy, to maintain vigilance over the security of the passport application process, to require companies to register with the Department prior to providing hand delivery services to certain applicants for U.S. passports, and to follow a uniform set of hand delivery procedures. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Written comments must be received on or before November 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested parties may submit comments to the Department by any of the following methods: <E T="03">Visit the</E> <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> <E T="03">website at:</E> <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> and search for the Regulatory Information Number (RIN) 1400-AE37 or docket number DOS-2025-0170. <E T="03">Mail (paper, disk, or CD-ROM):</E> Office of Adjudication, Passport Services, U.S. Department of State, 44132 Mercure Circle, P.O. Box 1227, Sterling, VA 20166-1227, ATTN: Courier Regulation. <E T="03">Email:</E> <E T="03">ca-courierreg@state.gov</E> . You must include the RIN (1400-AE37) in the subject line of your message. All comments should include the commenter's name, the organization the commenter represents, if applicable, and the commenter's address. If the Department is unable to read your comment for any reason, and cannot contact you for clarification, the Department may not be able to consider your comment. After the conclusion of the comment period, the Department anticipates publishing a Final Rule (in which it will address relevant comments) as expeditiously as possible. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Colin Walle, Passport Services, Office of Program Management and Operational Support, (202) 485-8800, <E T="03">ca-courierreg@state.gov</E> . You must include AE37 in the subject line. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> The Department published a NPRM, with a request for comments, proposing provisions of a new Part 54 of Title 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations. 85 FR 73244. The rule was proposed to formalize procedures for private domestic courier companies that applicants use to transport their passport applications and issued passports to and from domestic passport agencies. The Department received 52 comments in response to the NPRM. Subsequent to the publication of the proposed rule, it was determined that two additional provisions needed to be proposed for the new Part 54, namely §§ 54.20(d) and 54.30(c)(18) and (19). Those provisions are discussed after the analysis of comments. The Department is seeking comment on these provisions. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Compliance With the 2025 NDAA</HD> With regard to authority for the domestic courier program, the Department notes that Section 7507 of Public Law 118-159 (2025 National Defense Authorization Act, 2025 NDAA) provides Congressional recognition of the hand-carry courier service and calls upon the Secretary of State to take certain steps to strengthen the program. While the original NPRM preceded the 2025 NDAA, this rulemaking is the foundation on which the Department will be able to fulfill Congress' express direction in Public Law 118-159 to take steps as may be necessary to facilitate an increase in couriers, increase the number of slots, and facilitate public awareness of couriers. This rulemaking is just part of the Department's response to this direction. This rulemaking is necessary to put in place a formal, reliable regulatory structure upon which the Department can build and improve its courier program, consistent with comments and feedback the Department has received from couriers, not only in response to this rulemaking, but also through outreach. The Department has been accepting passport applications from couriers for decades before it issued the <E T="03">National Hand-Carry Procedures for Passport Applications and Completed Passports</E> (the Handbook) in 2007. Under the 2007 Handbook, there was no enforceable way to discourage companies from holding on to slots over multiple years, a practice that has ensured those companies on the lengthy waiting list for registrations cannot move any closer to the front of the line. This rulemaking, with its requirement that every company re-register every year and which permits the Department to cancel registrations for failure to use allotted slots, ensures that there will be a turnover in registered companies. Also, through the registration requirements contained in this rulemaking, the Department expects the number of couriers in operation and the number of slots in use to increase, as slots are expected to be better distributed based on actual use. One of the arguments put forward in public comments in response to the NPRM was a suggestion that the Department expand the courier program to include situations not involving “urgent” travel ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> within the next 14 days). This was not part of the Congressional direction, and the Department declines to implement this suggestion. Those on urgent travel might not have the time to process their passports, and the courier companies provide a service in such cases. Those not needing urgent processing are able to submit their documents (and if necessary, appear at a passport acceptance facility) personally. If this rulemaking is finalized, the Department intends to collect and provide information regarding currently registered couriers on its website, <E T="03">travel.state.gov,</E> to facilitate public awareness of the courier program. The Department welcomes comments and suggestions relating to the Department's compliance with the 2025 NDAA, especially actions the Department can consider to facilitate an increase in the number of certified hand-carry courier companies or an increase in the daily maximum number of passport agency meeting slots available to courier companies. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Analysis of Comments</HD> The proposed rule was published for comments on November 17, 2020. The comment period closed on January 19, 2021, and the Department received 52 comments. <E T="03">Comment: The Department should publish registered courier companies on its website</E> (9 comments received). The Department plans to publish information on the National Courier Program on the Passport pages of its website, <E T="03">Travel.State.Gov.</E> The information will include: 1. A list of courier companies registered at each passport agency for the calendar year. The list will note any companies that are temporarily banned from participation in the Program due to an infraction of the regulation. Companies permanently banned will be promptly removed from the list. 2. A link to the final rule/regulation for customers to reference if desired. <E T="03">Comment: Concern with the provision that a courier company employee cannot drop-off passport applications or retrieve completed passports for more than one courier company</E> (12 comments received). There will be no restriction on the number of companies that an individual runner can be employed by in the final rule. Comments received by the Department also indicate that some respondents believed that they could only have one employee drop off passport applications or pick up completed applications. This is inaccurate. A courier company may designate as many employees as they wish to perform this function. <E T="03">Comment: Seek clarification on the provision that courier companies not permitted to sell their slots to other courier companies</E> (5 comments received). Courier companies do not have ownership of slots and therefore are not permitted to sell them to other courier companies or entities. This means that a registered courier company cannot accept a payment from another courier company (registered or unregistered) to submit a passport application or applications on its behalf. This provision is intended to ensure that customers know the company they paid to provide the hand-delivery service is the company that actually performs the service. Customers may select a company based upon reputation, reviews on social media, complaints made to the Better Business Bureau, etc. Additionally, this provision reduces the exposure of sensitive documents containing personally identifiable information that customers submit with their application package. <E T="03">Comment: Do not have a lottery or first-come system for annual registration</E> (3 comments received). It is important to the Department that all courier companies wishing to register at a passport agency have an equal opportunity to do so. The number of companies that can be registered at any given time is based upon available agency resources and the number of appointments allotted to customers who wish to apply in person at an agency without needing to pay any additional fees for a courier company to hand deliver their application. Historically, most courier companies have maintained their registrations which has left many un-registered courier companies on a waiting list for several years. By having a r ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 63k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━