Would you travel on these passports or renew?

[TedOnTheBed]

Travelling to Turkey on 20 September 2022 for 7 nights, all 3 kids passports expire 8 April 2023. The minimum amount of time left on a passport for entry is 6 months which is 20 March 2023 so the dc have 19 extra days remaining, I think it’s fine as meets the requirements dh thinks it’s a risk and we should renew. What would you do?

Personally I would renew

I would not renew.

Renew. Don’t risk being denied entry and losing your holiday.

You're over the 6 month window so absolutely fine to fly

I would renew

I probably wouldn’t renew

What was the date of the last issue? That is the important date, not the date of the next renewal.

My next renewal is 27/9/26. But my issue was 27/5/16. So it's actually 6m remaining from 27/5/26, not the September date.

You may find, if it's a big difference like mine is, that your passports are already out of date when you travel.

I'd renew now anyway

@VanGoghsDog

What was the date of the last issue? That is the important date, not the date of the next renewal.

My next renewal is 27/9/26. But my issue was 27/5/16. So it's actually 6m remaining from 27/5/26, not the September date.

You may find, if it's a big difference like mine is, that your passports are already out of date when you travel.

This.

I would renew now.

I wouldn't renew. You'll be fine. Its within the rules.

But kids passports are for five years so by default less than 10 years old.

I wouldn't renew. The rule is 6 months and you're comfortably within that. They have no grounds to refuse entry on passport validity.

As above, it's down to the issue date and not the renewal date. If renewal is due so close to your holiday then I'd assume the issue date will be less than 6 month remaining

But kids passports are for five years so by default less than 10 years old

So? That doesn't change the renewal rules

I wouldn’t renew, we travelled in October and my son had just over 6 months left, we were just told to make sure we renewed it shortly after we got back, which we did.

Maybe if the OP could post all the relevant dates from the passports she'd get better suggestions.

People saying it's within the rules are wrong to say that when they don't actually know the issue date.

@sparepantsandtoothbrush

But kids passports are for five years so by default less than 10 years old

So? That doesn't change the renewal rules

But they need 6 months left and they have it. A passport is valid until it expires and can be used for entry to some countries without this ridiculous 'a ten year passport isn't actually valid for 10 years' rule.

eg Barbados or Canada

I don't understand the point about issue dates and renewal dates. Surely the expiry date is the one that matters, which is clearly within the rules? (19 days is a fair window and allows for any nuances of how they might count the days.)

With that said do you have a reason to not renew, since it should be fairly straightforward? e.g. no planned travel for next several years anyway (given 5y expiry)

I wouldn’t.
The 6 months rule is to ensure that people have a valid passport if they end up staying over. You’re not going to overstay by 6 months!! (Unless you’ve decided to become an illegal immigrant in Turkey but I very much doubt ut!)

19 days is well within the time limit.

I wouldn't renew unless you are likely to want to go away very soon after that again - the renewal time in April is likely to be a busy time, its probably around peak renewal time. So if you have another holiday after that planned, check you have enough time between getting home and sending it away again.

@touristina

I don't understand the point about issue dates and renewal dates. Surely the expiry date is the one that matters, which is clearly within the rules? (19 days is a fair window and allows for any nuances of how they might count the days.)

With that said do you have a reason to not renew, since it should be fairly straightforward? e.g. no planned travel for next several years anyway (given 5y expiry)

No, it used to be the case that you could renew early. But since Brexit, a passport can only be valid for 10 years. So even if you have six months to go, if you renewed say 3 months early, it would only be valid for 3 months, not 6.

I renewed mine because I had previously renewed it 9 months early. Effectively a passport is only valid for 9.5 months, and less if you renewed it early, even though it says 10.

It feels a lot like a scam.

But if the passport was issued less than 10 years before the OP's holiday ends, they should be fine without renewing. However, given the fairly tight timelines here, it may well have been issued too early.

(and yes I know Turkey isn't in the EU, but that's not the issue)

It doesn't matter if a child passport has extra months added as it will still be valid for less than 10 years.

I wouldn't renew as you have over 6 months remaining

These are the requirements for entry into turkey
www.mfa.gov.tr/visa-information-for-foreigners.en.mfa (Linked from uk government website). The 10 year rule people are referring to is an EU requirement but is not relevant to Turkey. I would not renew - it’s either valid for more than 6 months or it’s not. It literally doesn’t matter if it’s 6 months and 1 day or 6 years.

Date of issue is the important date.
If that's over 6 months then I would travel on them

I wouldn't renew, they have more than 6 months remaining so its not a problem. The whole 'from date of issue' can not be right otherwise if it really was 10 yrs from date of issue then the passport expiry date would be printed as the date 10 yrs on from date of issue not 10yr + what was remaining before (up to the limit) wouldn't it.