En esta noticia

Receiving a CP508C Notice from the IRS is one of the most serious signals the agency can send. It means that your tax debt was certified before the State Department and that your passport is at risk of being denied, not renewed, or even revoked. This is not an empty threat: it is the formal step that can leave you unable to travel abroad.

What the CP508C Notice is

The CP508C is the notice with which the IRS informs you that it certified your tax debt as “seriously delinquent” before the United States State Department. That certification is the mechanism that enables passport restrictions.

The notice does not arrive for just any debt: it is sent when the taxpayer accumulates a debt considered seriously delinquent, which in 2026 is approximately $66,000 (a figure that is adjusted every year for inflation and includes taxes, penalties, and interest).

The authority comes from the FAST Act, a 2015 law that authorized the IRS to coordinate with the State Department the denial or revocation of passports of major debtors.

Passports will be taken away from all those who have received this notice

Once the IRS issues the CP508C and certifies the debt, the State Department applies the passport restrictions. Specifically:

  • It does not issue a new passport if you are applying for one.
  • It does not renew the expired or soon-to-expire passport.
  • In certain cases, it can revoke an already valid passport.

In practice, the most common effect is that the taxpayer cannot apply for or renew their passport while the debt remains certified. If you are applying for one, the State Department usually gives you a deadline (usually 90 days) to resolve the situation before denying the application.