Complete form DS-11 legibly in black ink or fill it in on the State Department website at travel.state.gov and print it. Use the address of your sponsoring agency as the mailing address. You must be a U.S. government employee or an immediate relative of a deceased or missing armed services member to receive sponsorship. Contact the agency to learn what address to use on your form. Do not sign the form yet; you must sign it with an official witness present.
Visit a passport acceptance or application facility such as a post office and present your form DS-11 to an agent. He will witness your signing and take copies of your identification and proof of citizenship to attach to the application. Your documents will be returned to you with your passport. If your sponsoring agency specifies a place for you to turn in your documents, follow that instruction instead.
Present proof of your relationship to a child who is applying for a no-fee passport. Proof includes, but is not limited to, birth certificates and court order documents. Children are eligible for no-fee passports if they are traveling with their guardians on official government business or to an overseas military burial or memorial. You and the child's other parent, if one exists, must also provide consent.
Submit two color passport-sized photos of yourself to the passport acceptance agent. You can have photos taken at the passport facility for a fee, at a photo processing center, or you can take them yourself and crop and print them to the State Department's specifications. One photo will be used in your passport and the other will be returned to you if possible.
Pay the $25 execution fee if the facility demands one. Although there is no fee to process the passport, you may be assessed a fee to have the documents witnessed and accepted at certain facilities. This $25 is nonrefundable. Ask your sponsoring agency if there are places to apply that do not assess the fee.
Wait for your passport to arrive at your sponsoring agency. No-fee passports are not delivered to you through the mail directly from the passport processing center like regular passports. They are first sent to the government agency you are associated with. This extra step is to ensure that you are qualified to receive a no-fee passport. As of October 2009, it took up to six weeks for your passport to be processed. If you need to travel immediately, you can contact a passport center or your sponsoring agency to see whether your application can be expedited.
