Western Passport Center

My experience with Western Passport Center in Tucson was stellar. From passing through security, process of renewing passport and picking up passport the next day was a great business experience. All the employees were extremely professional and very nice/​helpful. Deserves more than 5 stars!!!

I live in Phoenix AZ… We were leaving to Europe on a Wed and Monday night at 6:00 PM I could not locate my passport. I went online and filled out the LOST passport paperwork, got a passport photo in the morning and showed up at the time the doors opened. The earlisest appointment was Thursday and my flight was Wed. They let me in and after helping the appointment individuals they assisted me. GET AN APPOINMENT IF YOU CAN! They were 10 stars in my book and very helpful. Saved my family trip to Europe by having my passport done same day by 2:00 PM and the trip was perfect! Tips… have appointment if possible, fill out prior all passport paperwork online, have passport photo and get to the office when they open if you do not have an appointment. One or two days a week they do not allow walk ups. LOOK! Total cost was less than 250.00 Priceless considering! Also have PROOF OF TRAVEL WITH YOU!!!

I had a 9:00 am appointment and was in and out within 10 minutes. The most efficient and courteous government office I have ever visited. I should have my passport in a few days. Unlike any other passport renewal experience I have ever had. I drove from Phx to Tucson for this appointment and it was so worth the drive. If I would have known how easy this process was through this office, I would not have stressed at all about having my passport back in time for upcoming travel. Great office personnel!!!

Needed to renew my passport but since I was under the age of 16 when my last passport was issued I was required to submit DS-​11 paperwork in person. Already frustrated with having to renew my passport in person for a rapidly approaching trip I decided to call the western passport center and schedule an appointment over the automated phone system. I was able to schedule an appointment quickly and was the first appointment of the day. I walked in and was helped immediately, everyone was super friendly and extremely efficient. I was in and out within 10 minutes and will have my new passport mailed to me very soon. I was so impressed with the customer service and efficiency of this passport center. Be sure to bring everything that they tell you to bring on the phone, you do need your proper forms, identification and payment this isn’t optional! I heard a lot of people around me having to leave and come back because they didn’t have everything they needed and were not prepared. Thank you Western Passport center for making everything super easy and my trip less stressful!

I can’t rave about our experience enough! It was hassle free and the staff was extremely polite and informative as we walked through the process. I called a week ahead of time and scheduled my appointment over the automated phone. Online listed all of the information I needed to bring (i.e. application, ID, photo, money, etc.) so I was prepared. We snagged the first appointment time of the day, 8:30am, and we were out of there by 9:00am and picked up the passport on our way down to Mexico for travel two days later. They do have the ability to do same day if you’re traveling far to the office and can’t make it back in time. There’s no cellphone calls or pictures allowed so may as well bring a book to pass the time. The biggest issue I overheard was people not bringing a picture with them– they do not offer that service on-​site. The closest place they had to send people was the Wal-​Mart down the street, so come prepared so they don’t send you away. You do have to pay an expedite fee of around $ 60, but it’s worth it for the piece of mind a week before leaving!

10pm in Phoenix, I realize my passport has expired but we have a trip to Mexico in 8 days.
By 11pm, I had filled out the forms online and used the telephonic appointment system to get a slot for the next day.
Drived to Tucson and submitted my application and paid $ 200.
The nicest people ever, had my new passport and card ready in 90 minutes!
Total time from the awareness of my mistake to the beautiful new passport in my hand was 17 hours. Seriously!
I watched them help others by going above and beyond what they needed to do. They gave them advice on how to do things more efficiently and quickly.
Spectacular customer service!
I will say that they seemed over staffed for the amount of work at the counters. But, hey, if they didn’t have such a casual workload, I doubt there would be such motivation for their customer service and desire to exceed expectations. I’m not complaining.

The staff, including security, could not have been any more helpful. This office staff’s willingness to help is completely opposite to the poor reputation often attributed to government employees. Not only were they truly professional, they showed the courtesy, understanding, and compassion, free of judgment, that we all would like to receive when we mess up. To make a long story short, they replaced my expired passport inside an hour the day before my trip overseas, even though I arrived at the office without an appointment on a Friday afternoon. My heartfelt gratitude to the gentleman from security who made the extra effort to check with the supervisor, and to that supervisor and support staff who graciously made the accommodation.

I don’t think I’ve rated a government office on Unilocal yet, but this was such a great experience, I’m giving them 5 stars. The building is a one-​block walk from my office, which was a really great surprise. When I got there, everyone from the security guards to the passport clerks were friendly, courteous, and professional. Total time was about 20 – 25 minutes over three visits. Even though it cost $ 95 extra to expedite, I walked back and had a new passport two days later. Highly recommended!

They. work. magic. Amazing people, very helpful! Special shout out to Billy!
Monty needed a passport for travel LITERALLY the next day for the Limit Club’s European tour, after spending months working out various issues with the release of his passport application we had our fingers crossed that it would all work out in the zero hour. They found and processed his application and issued his passport just in time for him to pick it up before they closed. Ahmazing!
Really no words for how helpful and nice the people here are. It was a refreshing end to a long battle with bureaucracy. My guy got his passport and was set to travel for work the next day. Cannot be thankful enough!

3 words: same day passports! Also everyone was very friendly, personable and very efficient! Way to do away with that government efficiency stereotype! Thanks to them, I’m off to Mexico tomorrow!

Nice people. We shouldn’t have had to come here but thank goodness they were here. My daughter ordered her passport two months plus a few days before her planned international travel, but after waiting the full six weeks she found out it had supposedly been delivered. No one knew where it was and everyone blamed someone else.
She filled out forms and mailed them only to find out it was too late to expedite a passport by mail. She was told to go to the department of State in LA only to learn their next available appointment was after her travel date! We were out of luck until we traveled to Tucson for their Regional Passport Center. They had same day appointments!!!
There’s plenty of free parking. It was easy to find. It’s air conditioned has bathroom and plenty of chairs. You pass through a metal detector then check in with someone that makes sure your paperwork is ready. This person will give you the right forms if you don’t have them. The forms are also in the waiting room but I think it’s best if you complete them before you go AND if you call for an appointment first.
You’ll get a number and take a seat. We were helped before our appointment time by a very nice agent. Then their system broke down and it took over an hour to get the passport, but the staff communicated with us all along. We were just so happy to walk out with a passport!!!

Best experience at a govt facility. Quick in and out with the most pleasant staff. Christina and David were phenomenal… thank you for our same day passports!

We planned on going to Niagara Falls after July 4^th while visiting friends and family in the Buffalo NY area. I submitted a Passport application on 3÷23÷15 for my son and received a request for more documentation on 4÷8÷15 in which they received on 4÷16÷15. The sad part is that there was zero communication from them from 4÷16÷15 and 6÷15÷15 and I had been calling the Help Center twice a week from the first week of May until 6÷15÷15 and they could only tell me that they are working on it. On 6÷15÷15 someone finally called me from the Tucson office and asked that I over night another document which they received on 6÷17÷15. TO this date I do not have a passport and will now have to drive an hour and a half just to talk to someone who can tell me what the hell is going on with his passport. This is government ineptitude at its finest and big waste of tax payers money if people cannot get an accurate status on their passport application without having to take a day off to go there after more than 12 weeks of them doing nothing. If it were possible to give them less than 1 star, I would have. This is totally unacceptable service.

The only thing bad about this office is that it teaches no lessons about procrastination. LOL Our situation wasn’t as much that as just complete oversight, but regardless, working with this office was an unbelievably wonderful experience. They resolved all of our problems with smiles and pleasantries.
Hopefully they’ll start running the DMV, too. =)

SHARON AND KATE WERE SO AMAZING! As regular college kids who procrastinate, me and my friend waited 4 days before we were leaving to Canada to get our passport cards. We got there at 9:15 am and they had our passport cards in our hands by 12:30 pm! They were quick and efficient and so kind. I had an appointment and my friend didn’t, but they let her in anyways and were so understanding. I was nervous that we wouldn’t have gotten them in three days but we got them in 3 hours! So so so so thankful for the employees, the guards were great as well!

Needing to get a passport on short notice and not being familiar with Tucson, I was given lots of different information on what the best plan of action and location to go to would be. Unilocal was where I received the most consistent, and accurate, information. There were no lines, I never even had a chance to sit down to wait. I went to the first window to review my paperwork and collect additional information and before I had a chance to sit, was directed to another window to finish the process. Very painless, very efficient, very courteous staff at every point. Would highly recommend this location for passport assistance.

My boyfriend and I needed more pages in our passports, so we decided to turn that need into a day trip. If you make your appointment before 10:45 am, you can even get extra pages the same day. It was so painless and easy that it left us time to tour The Bone Yard, stuff our faces with Sonoran hot dogs, and visit a friend.
Highly recommend not freaking out about your passport needs and visiting the Western Passport Office. They got you.

My wife and I booked a trip to Greece to see family. The night before the trip she got online to check-​in and realized that her passport had expired a few weeks prior. We were not able to fly out, of course. That night we called the automated line and made an appointment for the next day at 10:30am. Got there at 10:15, was let through, waited in line for a while but once we spoke to the appointment lady all went extremely fast and smooth. My wife showed them her itinerary (from our flight that we didn’t get on), paid $ 170, showed them her Drivers license and expired passport, and within an hour they had a new passport ready for us! We were really impressed with them. The only thing I’d recommend for others that have this issue, is to get there as early as possible so the passport can be issued the same day. As they issue passports at noon, and 2pm, so you need to get there at least 2 or 3 hours before in case something happens and there are others there. If you plan it that way, you really shouldn’t have a problem obtaining it here as they are very accommodating, nice, and intelligent here. Definitely NOT your average government workers. If every department operated this way, we would be doing pretty great! Thank you again to the Western office for helping us.
Lesson learned: check passport prior to booking flight.

Oh NO!
My passport has expired and we’re leaving in two weeks. Even our vacation in Mexico now requires a passport for the boarder crossings and I don’t have the small blue book that unlocks the door to the other side.
If I knew then, what I know now, I would not have panicked. What I would have liked to know then was that the Tucson passport office is populated by the most accommodating and polite employees I could possibly have hoped for. From the guards to the workers behind the counters everyone made me feel welcome with no disdain or recriminating questions concerning my need for an urgent passport renewal.
The face of government bureaucracy displayed at our passport office is perfect in my opinion and I highly praise the employees of this location.
With an expedite fee the passport was renewed in time for our vacation.