Travelers To Canada, Mexico Can Apply For Passport Cards In February

WASHINGTON (AP) – The State Department says it will start accepting applications February First for passport cards as alternatives to passports for Americans traveling to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

The wallet-sized cards will be available to U.S. citizens by this spring. They’ll cost $45 for adults and $35 for children. That’s cheaper than a regular passport. Adults who have passports will have to pay only $20.

The cards will be accepted for land and sea crossings between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, but not for flights. The new passport cards are being offered as part of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, or WHTI.

The first phase of that took effect last year, requiring U.S. travelers returning by plane from Mexico, Canada and the Caribbean to carry a passport.

That led to a temporary surge in demand for passports, with wait times for passports increasing from four to six weeks to 12 weeks. Those waits have since returned to normal.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)