The Online US Passport Still Needs a Witnessed Oath

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on September 29, 2026 that Americans will apply for a first U.S. passport online in 2027. He used America.gov and Login.gov to show a phone photo, a checkout, and an estimated delivery date, and he called the old path a maze of printed forms, lines, and paid middlemen.

At the same event he held up the 2028 book, a blue cover with a larger gold Great Seal. The demonstration did not explain how a first-time applicant takes the oath federal law still requires, and the new book will come in one 38-page size.

Rubio Promised No Line and No Middleman

Rubio told the America.gov launch that more than half of Americans now hold a passport, and that the document had moved from a 1781 sheet of paper to a booklet with a photograph and then to a chip, while the way people get one had not. If you need your first book today, he said, you still have to know which form to print, schedule a visit, and wait in line, which is where businesses charge for forms and appointments that are already free and then hold the applicant’s personal data.

Starting next year, he said, Americans will be able to apply for their first passport entirely online. The walk-through began with a typed question, signed the user in through Login.gov, pulled information the government already holds, accepted a photo from a phone, previewed that photo on a finished data page, and took payment. A status screen then showed an estimated delivery date, which Rubio compared with the way people already track a pizza.

No printing forms, no drugstore hostage photo, no appointment, no line, no middleman that you’re paying to do something that should be available to you.

Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, America.gov event, September 29, 2026

By the end of 2027, he said, the goal is for the vast majority of Americans to apply for a passport book or a passport card on America.gov. He also said the department is not waiting until 2027 to deliver an application people can finish from home. A State Department spokesperson later said the new first-time system will be a new platform, distinct from the online renewal tool already running. America.gov is live as a question-and-answer site. It is not taking first-time filings yet, and the department has not published who will qualify on day one.

The Oath Rule for a First Passport Has Not Changed

A first U.S. passport is still a legal act, not only a form. verified by his oath before a person authorized is the language in 22 U.S.C. 213 for anyone who has never been issued a United States passport: the application shall be verified by oath before a person the Secretary of State has empowered to administer oaths. The department’s own rule, 22 CFR 51.21, still tells a person who has never had a passport in their own name, and a minor, to appear in person before a passport agent or acceptance agent, swear or affirm, sign, hand over photographs, and pay.

That is why first-time adults still use Form DS-11, leave the signature line blank at home, and sign only after an agent checks a birth certificate or naturalization paper against a physical photo ID. Login.gov can fill a name and an address. It does not, on the public record, replace a witnessed oath or the inspection of original citizenship evidence. A renewal starts from a book the government already issued. A first application is the moment identity has to be established, which is the reason the statute wants a human witness. Skipping that step is the hard part the demo treated as already solved.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The promise: First-time applications are slated to move onto America.gov in 2027, with most Americans eligible by the end of that year.
• The demo: Login.gov, a phone or uploaded photo, online payment, and an estimated delivery date were shown on September 29, 2026.
• The present rule: Form DS-11, an in-person appearance, and an oath remain the published path for a first book.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Day-one eligibility: The department has not said which first-time applicants, if any, will still have to appear in person.
• The oath: No public amendment to 22 CFR 51.21, and no public method for a remote oath, has been issued with the announcement.
• Children: Minors are still named in the personal-appearance rule, and Rubio did not say they are in the online pool.
• The $35 fee: It is unclear whether the facility acceptance fee disappears when there is no facility.

Other governments have issued travel documents without a post-office visit for years. The American delay is this acceptance network, built to watch a person sign. Until the department rewrites the appearance rule or explains a remote oath, the online first passport is a product demo sitting on top of a statute that still wants someone in the room.

The $35 Fee at 7,400 Acceptance Counters

Rubio’s middleman line lands on a real fee, not only on websites that resell free forms. A first-time adult still pays the Department of State and, separately, the office that takes the papers. The Congressional Research Service, citing the department, counts more than 7,400 passport acceptance facilities in post offices, libraries, and clerks of court. Each one collects a $35 facility acceptance fee on a DS-11. Online renewals already skip that fee, because there is no agent and no oath.

WHAT A FIRST BOOK COSTS NOW

Expedited service adds $60 to the application fee and is advertised at 2 to 3 weeks. Routine service is 4 to 6 weeks, including online renewals. If first-time filings really leave the counter, those offices lose the $35 and the traffic that comes with it. Rubio framed that as cutting out a middleman. For a rural clerk or a post office that still runs passport hours, it is also a line of work.

Phone Photos Still Get Applications Held

The end of the drugstore booth is the easiest part of the pitch to understand, and the easiest to oversell. Applicants will be able to shoot a photo at home or upload one, and Rubio joked that people will take 150 frames before they like one. Filters that make you look 50 years younger, he said, will not pass. The department’s published photo rules have not been relaxed for the demo.

PHOTO RULES THAT STILL APPLY

• Age of the image: Submit one color photo taken in the last 6 months.
• Background: Use a plain white or off-white wall with no shadows, texture, or objects.
• Edits: Submit the original, unedited file with no filters, retouching, or digital changes.
• Pose: Face the camera with the head level; eyeglasses come off unless an exception applies.

Unacceptable photos are already the number one reason applications go on hold, the department says on its photo page. Online renewal already lets people upload a digital file and uses a tool that rejects some shots before checkout. A living-room wall that is not white, a crop that is too tight, or a portrait taken of a printed picture will still bounce. The drugstore light was ugly. It was also predictable. Home lighting is not.

Why the Book Shrinks to 38 Pages

The 2028 redesign replaces today’s 26-page and 50-page Next Generation books with one single-sized, 38-page passport book. Emergency passports stay a 12-page book. In an April 20, 2026, Federal Register notice (Public Notice 12997), the department said a 2024 study found a single 38-page format would raise efficiency and cut waste at the Government Publishing Office and inside passport issuance. On average, 92 percent of customers applying for a book request the 26-page version, so most people will gain 12 pages.

PAGE COUNTS BEFORE AND AFTER 2028

The notice is blunter than the travel-advice version of this story. Of the 8 percent who receive the 50-page book, most do so because of a policy practice for special-issuance and overseas applicants, not because a frequent traveler ticked a box. The people who will feel a 12-page cut are that overseas and special-issuance pool, plus the smaller group that actually asked for 50 pages. Adult books remain valid 10 years, child books 5, so a thinner stamp section has longer to fill.

The department said planned upgrades to online renewal for overseas customers may ease that burden. A renewal window tied to the printed expiration date does not help a traveler whose visa pages are full in year four while the book is still valid until year ten. Running out of space is not the same as nearing expiry, and the notice did not create a new way to add pages. Extra-page inserts were dropped years ago. For 2028, the factory gets one size. The stamp-heavy traveler gets whatever 38 pages can hold.

Flight of the Eagle Puts the Seal on Top

Rubio said the State Department worked with the National Design Studio to rethink the book from cover to cover and named the interior around one emblem, the American eagle. On the new cover, “United States of America” moves to the top and the Great Seal is larger, more prominent, and more gold. Inside, he said, the eagle appears to take flight as the pages turn, a flipbook effect over scenes he listed in order: patriots at Lexington, families crossing west in wagons, men who drove steel across a continent, two bicycle mechanics from Ohio, Marines on Iwo Jima, and the Artemis splashdown.

“It is a visual story of the greatest nation in the history of the world,” Rubio said, and he predicted people in airports would keep flipping the pages to watch the bird move. He also said the current mailer is not the packaging the document deserves. The department ships tens of millions of those envelopes a year, and he showed a new presentation case meant to replace them. Security features, he said, would stay off camera.

The 38-page Flight of the Eagle US passport redesign is due to enter production in 2028 as old stock is used up, so both covers will be in circulation for years. A valid current passport does not have to be replaced because the artwork changed. The new book is a production change, not a new expiration date.

Millions Already Renew Online Without a Post Office

First-time filing is the remaining paper wall. Eligible adults have been able to renew online since September 18, 2024, after pilots in 2022 and a capped public beta in June 2024. In a March 2026 report to Congress, the department said more than 5.3 million Americans had renewed that way. The department issued 27,348,416 passports in fiscal 2025, including 4,544,022 passport cards, up 2,832,630 from 24,515,786 in fiscal 2024, and it received 23,308,976 applications. Fiscal 2025 ended on September 30, 2025. Those figures are why a home application is being sold as capacity, not only as courtesy.

HOW PASSPORTS WENT DIGITAL

1. 2022: The State Department runs online renewal pilots after a limited public test.
2. June 2024: A public beta opens and caps how many renewals it takes each day.
3. September 18, 2024: Eligible adults in the United States can renew a 10-year book online at any time.
4. April 20, 2026: A Federal Register notice sets a single 38-page book for the next redesign.
5. September 29, 2026: Rubio demonstrates a first-time application on America.gov and shows the 2028 cover.
6. 2027: First-time applications are due to open online, with the vast majority of Americans eligible by year end.
7. 2028: The Flight of the Eagle book begins to issue as passport stock turns over.

Online renewal still excludes a lot of files: name changes, many data corrections, people who need expedite, applicants outside the United States, and anyone whose last book was issued too long ago or too young. The first-time portal is being built as a separate system, so those limits are not a preview of 2027 so much as a reminder that “online” in passport work has always meant a slice of the caseload. Until America.gov actually accepts a first DS-11, a traveler who has never held a book still prints the form, sits for the oath, and pays the facility its $35. A valid passport already in a drawer keeps working until the date printed in it.