Passport Acceptance Offices in San Diego, California

San Diego gives passport applicants an unusually wide range of choices for a single city, from a county-run counter downtown to a university office that keeps Saturday hours. Which one suits you depends mostly on your schedule and where you live: the County Clerk of the Board on Pacific Highway works well if you are already downtown, while the University City post office keeps things close to home for residents in the northern neighborhoods.

All of these offices sit in San Diego County. First-time applicants, families with children, and anyone who cannot renew by mail must apply in person at an acceptance facility like the ones listed here. If you are still deciding, the SDSU International Student Center office is open to the whole community and is handy for weekend applicants, whereas the county counter is the traditional government option.

San Diego is also fortunate to host a full regional passport agency of its own, the San Diego Passport Agency in the Columbia Place tower on West A Street downtown. That agency is reserved for travelers with urgent international trips within about two weeks and requires a separate appointment through the National Passport Information Center — for a routine passport, the acceptance offices below are the right starting point. Applicants elsewhere in the state can compare options on the California passport hub.

For routine applications, plan four to six weeks before you travel and use one of the acceptance offices below; the downtown passport agency is only for genuine emergencies within about 14 days. Every applicant must appear in person, and children under 16 need both parents present. Fees split between the acceptance office and the State Department, so check accepted payment methods — the county counter, for instance, does not take cards. Traveling from outside the metro? The statewide California directory lists acceptance offices in other cities.