I don’t understand the passport thing

[Dogondoolally]

So we are due to go away in May this year and the news has been on about the 10yr rule now being enforced and catching people out.
so I don’t understand it. I know you must have at least 3 months left on passport from day you return but it’s the 10 yr thing I can’t understand.
my passport says
Issue Date June 2015
Expiry Date August 2025
so extra months, will I be able to fly ??

@PotatoPudding Correct that you have to travel into the EU before the 10 year anniversary of issue, but if you had extra months on your passport then these months can cover the 3/6 months required prior to expiry.

The rules are separate;

1. Your passport must be less than 10 years from the printed date of issue on the date of outbound travel.

AND

1. Your passport must have at least X (typically 3 for EU) months until the printed expiry date after the date you plan to leave the EU.

The remaining months until expiry do not have to be within the 10 years, on a passport with added months.

Prior to Brexit you could happily travel fully within the added months on a British passport, regardless of issue date. Now you can't.

For reference my job involves advising on travel requirements from the UK to the EU and I've been dealing with these questions for 3 years now.

I had less than three months to 10 years of
issue but more than 6 to expiry. I was not allowed to travel to the EU.

With respect @PotatoPudding, you would have been able to and whoever told you that you weren't had (understandably, because they are confusing) misunderstood the rules.

As per my last post I've been advising on this for 3 years now and have seen many people in similar situations to yours successfully travel into the EU, most recently last week in a situation where it came down to being a few days from the 10 years since issue, but with months until expiry.

I thought it was six months from return travel.

"I thought it was six months from return travel."

Nope

Here. It's pretty simple and has been widely discussed. Outside of the EU you'll need to check their specific requirements. You can do this easily on gov . uk

Sorry to be late to this discussion. You do not need to renew the passport. You can travel to Italy up to October 2024; you must leave by November 2024. Your holiday in June will be fine on that passport; plenty of validity for June.

No problem, we renewed it anyway as im hoping to sneak in another week sometime around October

Whole process of renewal took about 1 week.

I've just seen this post. And it's got me looking at my passport, which runs from july 2016 to July 2026, and doesn,t have the extra three months thing that some have on theirs. And I am hoping to go away in September for a "special" holiday, so think, maybe let this slide instead of renewing, and get it starting from end of august. So I don't waste a month of passport as I'm not going anywhere in July.
Does that make sense?

No, because you will have to do a whole new application involving a face to face interview at the passport office. Do the renewal!

No she won’t. She won’t be applying for her first passport, just renewing one, albeit late.

I deleted my post as I was confused as to what month it is. Yes you could let your passport expire and then do a renewal before your trip next year

Even if the passport had expired she would just do a renewal. You only need an interview if its for a first adult passport where you've never had a passport before (including child passport). Sometimes needed in the case of a lost passport when applying for a new one.

This, ignore the rest. Get your new passport.

This isn't strictly true. The actual expiry can be used when calculating the 3 months remaining

• When entering the EU passport must be under 10 years old - look at issue date and add 10 years

• When leaving the EU you need 3 months remaining - look at expiry date

do you? My british passport expired in Feb 2020 and because i have a German one i just left it. Then the whole ETA and passport gate stuff came in so i decided to renew. It took 3 weeks and that is mostly because it took a week for my old passport and photocopy of my German passport to arrive in UK. But there was no issue in renewing a passport that's been out of date for nearly 6 years

Ok. Thank you. I think I'll get my new one April time, just before the other one runs out. Then I'll have loads of time to book my holiday and not worry about it. 😊

i found their website was really good at predicting how long the passport would be. DH applied at the same time but his photo and one photocopy was rejected so his took a week longer. But we were informed about the progress at every step, and the fact that both previous passports were well expired wasn't an issue at all.