Cost of passports climbs

CLEVELAND - Want to get away? It may cost you a little more.

That's because the application fee for a passport increased by 27 percent in February, from $55 to $70 with a 100 percent increase, from $20 to $40, in the passport security surcharge.

What's more, it's going to cost you $82 — up from nothing — to add new pages to a U.S. passport. U.S. officials say the hike is needed to pay for employee time and paperwork.

Also, registering the overseas birth of an American child is going to cost more - $100, up from $65 - and cost of getting a document notarized at a U.S. embassy abroad is now $50 for a single page, up from $30.

Finally, the Federal Register announced in February the cost of processing a formal renunciation of U.S. citizenship has gone up 450%, from $0 to $450. Citizenship is free for most Americans who were born in the United States.