Apple To Roll Out Digital U.S. Passports On iPhone "Soon"

One of the few promised features conspicuously missing from last month’s iOS 26.0 rollout was support for US passports in Apple Wallet. Following the public release of iOS 26 in mid-September, Apple quietly updated its website to indicate that the feature wasn’t here yet — but that it would be coming in a software update.

Later that month, Apple quietly clarified that digital passports were still on track to arrive by the end of 2025 by adding “later this year” to that same footnote. Still, the timeline remained vague — until this past weekend.

This will not only fulfill the promise Apple made during its June Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), but also help it catch up to Google, which pulled ahead in the digital ID space when it added support for US passports last year — an ironic twist, considering Android entered the game nearly two years after Apple rolled out Digital IDs on the iPhone in late 2021.

More significantly, this new capability will bring iPhone digital IDs to a much wider audience. So far, only 12 states and Puerto Rico have embraced digital driver’s licenses; as a federal document, US passports will be available to holders in all 50 states — and likely even expatriates. They’ll be usable in the same way as state-based digital IDs: at selected TSA airport checkpoints and for age and identity verification at businesses set up to handle them, both in-person and online.

This is one of those rare situations where rolling out a feature isn’t entirely under Apple’s control. The company undoubtedly hoped to have support for US passports ready to go when iOS 26.0 shipped, but the wheels of bureaucracy don’t always turn as fast as we’d like. Even though Google already blazed a trail for digital passports, Apple still needs to cut the red tape on its own, including paperwork, compliance checks, operational testing, and certification by the US State Department and the TSA.

Bailey didn’t provide a more detailed timeline, aside from saying the new digital ID was coming soon.