United States Passport Renewal by Mail (Form DS-82)

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice. v1.0.0's own VERIFICATION.md stays as the authoring provenance for that version and is not edited (VERSIONING.md §3 immutability); v1.1.0 shipped without its own record. This is a fresh record for v2.0.0.

Current claim

• status: verified (advanced from draft — this version performs the full independent field-by-field review the practice requires)
• verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
• verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-02

This closes out GOV-603 (board ask, split from GOV-434): advance the homepage hero's featured schemas beyond draft through the real verification practice, starting with the most-worked reference schema.

Why this is a MAJOR version, not MINOR or PATCH

Two independent classes of change are bundled in this release:

1. A field-removing, validation-tightening correction to the eligibility gate and the sex-marker field (see "Discrepancies found and corrected" below) — per VERSIONING.md §1, removing a field or narrowing an enum so previously valid input becomes invalid is MAJOR: an agent built against v1.1.0 that sent passportLostOrStolen / passportUndamaged or sexMarker: "X" would have that input rejected by v2.0.0.
2. 28 new, entirely optional fields (see "New fields added" below) — on their own this is MINOR (every v1.1.0-conforming applicant document remains valid under v2.0.0).

The higher of the two — MAJOR — governs the release as a whole: 1.1.0 → 2.0.0.

Independent second-reviewer pass

Per the practice's Procedure steps 2–3, this pass re-fetched every source fresh rather than trusting v1.0.0's authoring record:

• https://travel.state.gov/en/passports/renew-replace/mail.html — retrieved 2026-07-02. The eligibility summary here still lists the same six plain-language conditions v1.0.0 originally derived; it does not by itself surface the wording precision the underlying PDF's Section A carries (see next bullet), so it was cross-checked against the form itself rather than relied on alone.
• The live fillable Form DS-82 PDF (eforms.state.gov/Forms/ds82_pdf.PDF, "DS-82 04-2025" per its own footer, OMB expiration 06/30/2028) — retrieved 2026-07-02, extracted two independent ways:
  • Page text, via pdfjs-dist's getTextContent() (the rendered text of all 6 pages: 4 instruction pages + 2 application pages), giving the exact printed wording of Section A's eligibility statements and Section C's numbered field instructions.
  • AcroForm field structure, via pdf-lib's form-field API (71 named widgets: text fields, checkboxes, and radio groups with their export values) — cross-checked against the page text to confirm every visible field has a corresponding named widget, and to inventory fields the page text alone does not fully enumerate (e.g. the Emergency Contact and Permanent Address blocks, whose section headers are graphical rather than running text).
  • A methodology note: every one of the 71 widgets' native /Ff "Required" bit is unset, including on fields already correctly modeled as required: true here (name, DOB, SSN, mailing address). This form does not use the PDF-native required-field mechanism at all; requiredness in this document is, and must continue to be, read from the source's own printed instructions and section framing, not the AcroForm flag.

Discrepancies found and corrected

1. Eligibility gate restructured to match the live form's actual six statements. v1.1.0 modeled six eligibility booleans authored against an earlier form revision. The current Form DS-82 (Rev. 04-2025) Section A reads: "You are eligible to use this form if you can answer 'Yes' to ALL statements below about your passport," followed by exactly six YES/NO statements (confirmed against the PDF's 6 eligibility radio groups: Most Recent, 16 Years, Less Than 15, Damaged, Not Limited, Name Changed) — but they are not the same six v1.1.0 had:
   • passportLostOrStolen and passportUndamaged no longer exist as separate statements; the current form combines them into one: "The U.S. passport book and/or card that I am renewing has not been mutilated, damaged, or reported lost or stolen." Replaced both with a single new field, passportNotMutilatedDamagedOrLostStolen.
   • The current form has a statement v1.1.0 never modeled: "My U.S. passport was not limited to less than the normal ten-year validity period due to passport damage/mutilation, multiple passport thefts/losses, or non-compliance with 22 C.F.R. 51.41." Added as a new field, passportNotLimitedValidity.
   • passportIssuedAge16OrOlder's old label bundled "...and was it valid for 10 years?" onto the age-16 check. The current form's actual statement 2 is age-only ("I was at least 16 years old when my most recent U.S. passport book and/or card was issued.") — the validity-period clause is the separate statement above, not part of this one. Label corrected to drop the bundled clause.
   • nameMatchesOrHaveDocumentation's label tightened to state the current form's actual OR-structure and scope (name-change acceptable only "by marriage or court order", not any name change) verbatim.
   • Net effect: still six eligibility fields, same eligibility step, same canSubmitMostRecentPassport / passportIssuedWithin15Years names unchanged — but the fields covering "damage/loss" and "validity period" are restructured to match what the form actually asks today.
2. sexMarker validation narrowed from ["F", "M", "X"] to ["F", "M"]. Form DS-82 (Rev. 04-2025) Section C, item 3, states: "You must select sex marker option 'M' (male) or 'F' (female) that corresponds with your biological sex at birth." The current form's field set (confirmed via both the page text and the AcroForm's Gender widget) offers only these two options. This is a straightforward mechanical read of the current government form's stated field constraint, recorded here as a fact about the source document as of this review date — like every validation rule in this document, it describes what the live form currently accepts, nothing more, and is expected to be re-checked at the practice's normal cadence like any other field.
3. mailingAddressLine2 label and description corrected. v1.1.0 labeled this "apartment, suite, or unit," but Form DS-82 Section C item 8 states: "For line 2, if you do not live at the address listed in this field, put the name of the person who lives at this address and mark it 'In Care Of'." Line 2 is a "care of" line, not an apartment/unit line; label and description corrected to match the source wording exactly.

New fields added (additive, MINOR-tier on their own)

Discovered by cross-referencing the AcroForm's 71 named widgets against v1.1.0's 28 fields — 27 widgets had no corresponding field. All are required: false, matching the source's own framing of these sections as optional or conditional:

• Mailing address: mailingAddressCountry (the form has a country line; v1.1.0 implicitly assumed U.S.-only).
• Permanent address (permanentAddressLine1/Line2/City/State/PostalCode/Country) — a block distinct from mailing address, for when they differ or the mailing address is a P.O. Box.
• Physical description (height, hairColor, eyeColor, occupationOrEmployer) — optional identifying information, not printed in the current passport book.
• otherNamesUsed — Form DS-82 Section C item 9 ("List all other names you have used").
• additionalContactPhone — a secondary contact number field distinct from the primary phone field already modeled.
• Name-change detail (nameChangeDate, nameChangePlace, nameChangedByMarriage, nameChangedByCourtOrder) — only relevant when nameMatchesOrHaveDocumentation's name-changed branch applies; the existing nameChangeDocument field already covers the file upload.
• Emergency contact block (emergencyContactName, emergencyContactRelationship, emergencyContactAddressLine1/Line2/City/ State/PostalCode/Country, emergencyContactPhone, emergencyContactEmail) — a new emergency_and_travel step.
• Travel plans (travelDepartureDate, travelReturnDate, countriesToBeVisited) — same new step; only relevant if travel is imminent.
• passportBookSize (regular/large) — the form's book/card size choice, applicable only when renewing a passport book.

Intentionally not modeled

• Two AcroForm checkbox widgets, Additional # 1 and Additional # 2. Their purpose could not be confidently determined from the field name, page-text context, or their position relative to labelled fields. Rather than guess at a data element, they are left unmodeled; a future reviewer with access to a rendered view of the form (this review had none — see "Extraction method" note above) should resolve what these represent.
• A second, " 2"-suffixed set of name/DOB/phone text-field widgets (e.g. Name of Applicant (Last, First, Middle) 2, Date of Birth 2). The page text confirms Form DS-82 is a two-page application ("Application Page 1 of 2" / "Application Page 2 of 2") and Page 2's visible content (Section F / page-6 text: Zip Code, Country, Email, dates, Relationship To Applicant, Countries To Be Visited, Phone Number) matches fields already modeled in the Emergency Contact / Travel Plans blocks — consistent with these " 2"-suffixed widgets being a Page 2 identity-header repeat of already-captured applicant fields (a common continuation-page pattern), not a distinct data element. Not modeled separately on that reading, but flagged here as the reasoning rather than a silent omission.
• Fees, processing times, and mailing addresses for submission (Sections D/E/F) remain deliberately excluded as data (SPEC's guidance on fee/policy volatility), per v1.0.0's original scope decision, unchanged.

Sources examined

• Live page: https://travel.state.gov/en/passports/renew-replace/mail.html, retrieved 2026-07-02.
• Form PDF: https://eforms.state.gov/Forms/ds82_pdf.PDF ("DS-82 04-2025"), retrieved 2026-07-02, extracted via pdfjs-dist page text and pdf-lib AcroForm field enumeration (see "Independent second-reviewer pass" above).
• Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-02
• Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer)

Re-verification

Per the practice's Cadence, nextReviewBy is 2027-01-02 (6 months): passport renewal is a fee/policy-sensitive process, and this cycle's finding — a real, mid-cycle form-revision drift since v1.0.0/v1.1.0 were authored — argues for holding to the practice's default cadence rather than lengthening it. Re-check the source on or before that date, and immediately on any new Form DS-82 revision notice or source.url change.