American travelers may choose to get a passport book, a passport card or both. What are the advantages and disadvantages to each…and what’s the best choice for your future travel plans? Travel expert John DiScala explains it all here…
The 28-page book is the traditional form of passport. Bound in navy blue and measuring 5 by 3.5 inches, it contains your identifying information and blank pages for visas and stamps.
People 16 and older pay $130 plus a $35 execution fee. For children under 16, the cost is $100 plus the $35 fee.
Books expire 10 years after issuance for those age 16 or older. For those younger than 16, validity is five years.
The book is the gold standard for travel identification. With it, you can enter any country, traveling by any means. You also can use it as identification for domestic travel.
A passport card measures 3.3 by 2.1 inches, the size of a driver’s license. It contains only your identifying information.
For people 16 and older, cards cost $30 plus a $35 execution fee. For under 16, the cost is $15 plus the $35 fee.
For individuals 16 or older at the time of issuance, a passport card is valid 10 years…five years for children 15 and younger.
Cards secure entry only into Mexico, Canada, Bermuda and certain Caribbean countries by land or sea. They are not valid for international air travel, even to those countries. But a passport card can be used for domestic air travel.
You can get a passport card using the same application you would use for a passport book—just check the box for the card, and pay the appropriate amount.
Anyone who can afford it should have a passport book in case they ever need to leave the country by air. If you’re planning only on driving trips or cruises, a passport card might be fine. But beware: There have been cases when Americans traveling with only passport cards got sick or injured in foreign countries and couldn’t be flown out because they weren’t carrying a passport book.
One benefit of a passport card: It will be accepted in lieu of a REAL ID card. After years of delay, the TSA is scheduled to begin requiring identification cards with the REAL ID feature for domestic air travel starting this May. If you don’t have a REAL ID license yet, you could use a passport card instead. Of course, you could also use a passport book, but the card is slimmer, more portable and more durable than the book.
If you opt for both a book and a card: For security reasons, it’s best not to carry them both while traveling. If you do carry them both, keep them separate so they’re not lost or stolen together.
