I've only lived in PA a few years and am confused about this. I have a PA driver's license that I got in Aug 2019. My birthday is in December and I got a letter from PennDOT saying it's time to renew (which already seemed odd as it said licenses are good for four years and by my birthday it will be 3.3 years, but I guess it is less than four depending on when your birthday falls).

I have a few questions that I need help with.

1. Do I need a new photo taken? I renewed it online and they sent me a camera card, so I guess so. But some sites say that if my photo is on file I don't need a new photo. Which one is it? (Maybe that info was from early in the pandemic when they decided not to do this for pandemic safety reasons?)

2. Do I really need to bother to go to the library to print out my signed "temporary license" when my real license isn't expiring until late December?

3. Where can I go? When I look online, I get many locations that are AAA. If I go to a AAA office, what is the additional fee, if any, I'd pay to AAA for this service? Really, I just want to go to a PennDOT office, not AAA. Where is one of those? (I am in Homestead).

4. If I go to one in Pittsburgh downtown, is there parking there?

Thanks, locals!

EDIT: Thanks, everyone. Updating after I got it renewed (answers match what everyone told me anyway)

1. Yes, I did need a new (fairly horrible, of course) photo taken.

2. No, I didn't need the temporary license because my license wasn't expiring within two weeks.

3. I wound up going to the AAA at 5900 Baum Blvd at about 4:00 pm on a Thursday, mid-month. I was taken immediately and had my new license in five minutes. There was no extra fee but the AAA front desk woman said that was because I paid PennDOT online (and had I not done that, it would have been $15 more. I don't know if that is right and it sounds a little off to me). So in total, for a non Real ID card (I have a passport, so I don't care about Real ID) it was $30.50, paid ahead of time. I just needed to bring my current license and the camera card that PennDOT sent to me within a week or so of paying on their website for license renewal.

4. That AAA has a free parking lot (you have to grab a token inside to be able to get out of the parking space).

Overall, silly easy. If only all life went this smoothly.

If I renew my license in person, will they give it to me then and there? Or do I have to wait for it to be mailed to me?