What does each agency charge to change my name?

Free

• Social Security. Form SS-5 has no fee, and Social Security never charges for a card.
• The IRS. There is no individual name-change form to file, so there is nothing to pay.
• Voter registration. Updating your name is free in every state that registers voters.
• The Postal Service. Nothing to file, nothing to pay.

The passport

The State Department publishes its own fees, and at this writing they run: $130 for a passport book, whether you renew by mail on DS-82 or apply in person on DS-11; a $35 execution fee on top when you apply in person, which makes $165 on DS-11; and $60 for expedited service, with expedited return delivery charged separately.

DS-5504 — the form for a passport issued less than a year ago whose holder changed their name within that year — carries no application fee at all unless you ask for expedited service, which is charged separately.

Fees move, and the check is written to the government rather than to us. Confirm the current figure on the State Department’s fee page at travel.state.gov before you send anything.

Your driver license or state ID

This is the one that genuinely varies. Some states charge a duplicate-card fee, some charge the full renewal fee, and some fold the change into a renewal you were due anyway. We print a fee on your state sheet only where the state publishes one, with a link to its fee schedule. Where a state does not publish, we say so rather than printing a plausible number.

Certified copies

The certified copies themselves cost money, set by the office that holds the record and usually quoted per copy. Order more than one in the same request — several agencies want to see one and extra copies ordered together almost always cost less than a second request later.

Nothing on this page is charged by us. Our price buys the paperwork; every fee above is paid to the agency that wants it.