Post-1925 Passport Applications: How to Request via FOIA from the US State Department
Send FOIA request via email to: PPT-Public-FOIARequests@state.gov
If born less than 100 years ago make sure to include proof of death (death certificate, SSDI printout, photograph of gravestone.)
Sample Request
Pursuant to FOIA, I request any passport applications on file for the individuals listed below. Please include any documents or other materials included with the passport applications.
All of the individuals listed are deceased and were born more than 100 years ago.
- Meyer Cohen. Born: 24 August 1880 in Vienna, Austria. He traveled on passport 36189 in 1949. There may have been additional passports.
- Teresa Papio née Russo who was born on 8 June 1886 in Rome, Italy.
I swear that the above information is true under penalty of perjury.
Full Name
Full Mailing Address
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Whose records can I expect to find at the State Department?
•After World War I, Passports were not mandatory again until 1941
•Passports were still not required for travel to Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean islands (this did not change until c. 2007)
•In the 1980s the State Department improperly destroyed about 50% of the passports issued from 1925 to 1965
–Records destroyed: Routine passport applications for native born citizens, routine renewal applications
–Records retained: applications for foreign born citizens, registration applications, applications for native born citizens with secondary evidence of birth
•All passports applications from 1966 to today should still exist
Where can I find passports for March 1925 and earlier?
–FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2185145)
–Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1174/)
–National Archives catalog (https://catalog.archives.gov/)