Dave Naffziger's Blog

After exceeding 150 comments on post detailing my original experience getting a same day passport, I decided to go through the comments and separate the experiences and helpful tips by passport office.

These comments and tips were related to people’s experiences at the Atlanta Passport Office. There were several things worth highlighting from the comments:

• The Atlanta office has accepted people without appointments. There is of course no guarantee that you will be able to get your passport, as you are basically handled on a ‘space available’ basis after those with passports are processed.
• Make sure you have hard evidence of same day travel. I think this means flight reservations for that day.

From Michael:

First of all, this is a fantastic resource. But I hope you’ll update this to reflect that there is a center in Atlanta now—opened May 2011. I almost drove 10 hours to DC (20 RT) but found out about the Atlanta center and cut my drive time down to 4.5 hours (9 RT).

I moved to a new house recently, and my passport disappeared during the move. I freaked out. I leave for a trip on July 26, but the quickest appointment I could get in DC was the 29th. I planned to just drive 10 hours and show up without an appointment, but then I discovered that the Atlanta office would do same-day passports. I called and was able to get an appointment for 10:30 am the next day. The passport center very centrally located in an office building in downtown Atlanta, and the part of town it’s in has nice hotels literally lining the streets (Sheraton, Westin, Ellis, etc) so my gf and I rented a room in a nice hotel and made a mini vacation out of it. The hotel we were in was literally a 5 minute walk to the office. Even though my appointment was at 10:30, I was concerned about not getting it the same day, so I went at 8:10, right after it opened. (The hours are 8am-3pm, M-F).

The office is on the 10th floor. Get off the elevators and turn left. You must go through a metal detector and have your bag scanned. They asked for your confirmation number (they didn’t check it against anything, just checked to see if you had one), passport pictures, and proof of travel. Then the bag was screened, and once its contents were cleared, you pass through a metal detector and can then go in the main office. Everyone there had an appointment so I’m not sure how they handled it for people who didn’t. Everyone stood in a line, and when it was your turn, you went to one of the two windows checking paperwork. They asked my appointment time and I was a bit concerned they’d tell me to wait till 10:30, but they didn’t even bat an eye. I was fully checked in and given a number by 8:23 (the time printed at the bottom of my ticket). My number was A-15 so I suppose 14 sets of people checked in before me.

When it was my turn I got to the window, she checked everything, and I paid. I asked if I would be able to get it later that day and she said no because there were so many people leaving the next day. She said it would have to be fed-exed first thing Monday morning for overnight. I was freaking out a bit, but finally convinced her I needed to have it the same day to avoid the chance it wouldn’t get there before my flight and to save me a 9 hour round trip. I was handed a receipt and told to return at 2, but that I would probably end up having to wait till 3.

I showed up at 1:45, and if you don’t need same-day service, this might be the best time to go! The waiting room was basically empty. There were only 2 people waiting. I went to the special window to pick up my passport, and it was already ready. So amazing! I just went right up to the window because there was no one in front of me, but a short line formed behind me and a man came up and asked everyone for their receipts and told them to sit and they would bring them the passports so there wouldn’t be a line, so I guess this process can vary.

Anyway, amazing experience, super friendly and helpful employees there, and I imagine singnificantly less busy than other centers. But please update the site to include Atlanta!

If you have had an experience at the Atlanta passport office, please share it below. This tremendously helps future readers!