Planning to Studying Abroad this fall on a semester-long student visa, but passport will expire during my stay.

3 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Planning to Studying Abroad this fall on a semester-long student visa, but passport will expire during my stay.**

   Hello,

   I’m currently in a bit of a pickle, so here’s my situation:

   I had just been accepted by the university to study for one semester, and am now waiting to get my Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) so that I can apply for my visa. I have filled the necessary paperwork, including fulfilling the sufficient funds for my stay. However, I do have a major problem: my passport expires in early November, which means that my passport will not be valid for my entire stay.

   I have two inquiries, the first one is:

   **Is it possible to renew my passport at the US consulate in Japan as soon as I arrive in August, and before my passport would expire in early November? This situation would be in the scenario that I would obtain my CoE and student visa successfully.**

   ​

   The second question is this:

   **If I do not get approved for my visa due to my passport expiring in October, can I renew my passport here and now in the United States so that I have a valid passport before I apply for the visa?**

   I’d like to get into a little more depth with the second question. I had first tried to inquire at my local passport agency about this (which is a federal building), and they told me to book an appointment on the [travel.state.gov](https://travel.state.gov) website. So I went back, checked the website, and it told me to call a toll-free number to book an appointment. I then call that toll-free number, and it leads me to a dead end, meaning that I cannot find a path that would lead me to making in appointment, let alone speak to a real person. I then go back to the local passport agency (the federal building), and tell them my situation. They (the security) informed me that:

   -That it is possible to renew my passport at the US consulate in Japan (the situation where I have both a CoE and a student visa)

   -Call that number persistently for the appointment, because it’s very busy

   -That in order to have my passport renewed here in the United States, and ASAP, I would have to not only be travelling within 14 days, but also show proof that I am staying in the country, like booking a hotel somewhere.

   So I am clearly travelling well beyond 14 days from now, and I am stuck between deciding two things:

   -Whether I should begin the process of renewing my passport ASAP by moving to schedule an appointment and informing the agency of my situation

   -Or whether I should wait for the process of the CoE -> student visa to progress, which means relying on the possibility of renewing my passport upon arrival in Japan. In this situation, I would of course head to the US consulate there and have this started ASAP.

   The one scenario I wish to avoid is to be a sitting duck when I could be doing something as these months go by. If anyone can share with me their experiences that are exactly or similar to my situation, or any expertise whatsoever, I would very much appreciate it, as this is very new to me. Thank you for your time.

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2. You should *absolutely* be renewing your passport before you leave the country. Hell, you should have renewed your passport before you even applied for the study abroad program specifically to avoid the situation you’re now in.

   Travelling on a soon-to-expire passport is an absolute nightmare. At every single step of the way you’re going to get held up while the relevant people (embassy staff, airline staff, immigration staff, etc) check their binders of procedure and consult with supervisors to figure out if you’re allowed to travel. I’ve done it before and it ended up with me missing several of my fights because the airline staff couldn’t figure out if I was allowed to travel.

   **EDIT**: ~~Something I forgot earlier is that it’s~~ *~~effectively impossible~~* ~~to renew your US passport by mail in Japan anymore. The embassy requires a USD money order for mail renewals, and you cannot get one of those in Japan anymore unless you have base access. Japan post was the only available source, but they stopped issuing them a few years back.~~

   ~~So the~~ *~~only~~* ~~way to renew your passport in Japan is to take a day off and go into the embassy/consulate in person. Depending on where your school is located this could be a significant and expensive trip.~~

   Scratch all that. Looks like they enabled online payment since I renewed in 2020.

3. To add to Dalkyr, usually you’re required to have a minimum of 6 months of validity to travel as a tourist (longest stay being 3 months).

   For a student visa, the minimum is your entire stay + 6 months. I asked an adviser about it before and that’s what I was told.

   I don’t think you’re going to get your CoE (and if you do, you won’t get the visa) and I’m surprised the school haven’t told you of this huge issue themselves before applying for a CoE.