Renewing a Chinese passport in the U.S.

Renewing a Chinese passport in the U.S.
A Chinese passport is renewed at the office for your consular district, and there is no appointment to book. The fee is not published in English by any of the five offices.

Renewing a Chinese passport abroad is a consular service in the proper sense: the office acts for a Chinese national, not for a visitor.

Which office is not negotiable, the same district rule that governs visas governs this, and each of the five publishes a dedicated email address for passport and travel document work, separate from the visa address.

Where to write

Office Passport and travel document email
Embassy, Washington [email protected]
New York [email protected]
Chicago [email protected]
San Francisco [email protected] (passport) · [email protected] (travel document)
Los Angeles [email protected] (overseas Chinese affairs)

What the counter is for

Things worth knowing before you go
  • Applications are made through the China Consular service, and the counter completes what the system cannot
  • The fingerprints a passport requires are taken at the office, which is why this cannot be done entirely by post
  • A lost or damaged passport is a different application from a renewal, with its own documents
  • Counter hours are narrower than office hours at every one of the five
  • A Chinese national who has acquired another nationality automatically loses Chinese nationality and cannot renew
    •  Fees and processing times are not published in English.  Rather than repeat a figure from an aggregator, write to the address above for your district and ask. This is a service whose price the five offices publish in Chinese only, and a wrong money order is the most common cause of a returned file.

    Renewing a Chinese passport: Your district only; Fingerprints in person; Fees in Chinese only
    Renewing a Chinese passport

    Travel document, passport, and which is which

    Two documents get confused here. A passport is issued to a Chinese national who has one already or is renewing. A travel document is issued mainly to a Chinese national who has no passport, which in practice usually means a child born abroad to a Chinese parent who had not settled overseas.

    The two are applied for through the same channel and often at the same counter, and the offices publish separate email addresses for them in San Francisco but a single one elsewhere. Say which you need when you write.

    All the proceduresAppointments and walk-ins

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