Does everyone need a passport to travel?

[Wonderi]

Bit of a weird one.

Is there anyone who doesn’t need a passport to travel?

I thought you had to have one if you want to go to a different country.

I know someone who isn’t British but has lived in England for many years.

They want to travel to their home country but don’t have a passport and say they don’t need one.

YABU - not everyone needs a passport to travel.
YANBU - everyone needs a passport to travel (unless you’re the king or something).

Which country?

I would have thought that any travel outside the UK needed a passport. Are they saying they didn’t have one to enter the UK?

Is their home country Ireland? I presume it’s possible if it’s a country with open borders. For example, you can (as an American) travel from the US into Mexico without a passport, but I believe you need a passport to re-enter the US.

Some countries have ID cards which can be used for travelling.

Within EU you can use id cards but that won't help them return to UK.

Not unless it's somewhere within the UK or somewhere like Guernsey or the Isle of man.

If the home country is in the Common Travel Area* then you can usually travel with a driving licence.

*Ireland, UK, Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey.

Well you learn something every day, I didn't know there were countries withe open borders. But even if they don't technically need one to get into their home country, I am not sure how you book an international flight or get through the check-in process without one?

They will need a passport unless traveling within CTA, or possibly if they have National ID from a EU/EEA country (or are a diplomat but I'm guessing not by your post!)

You don't need a passport to travel between Ireland and the UK, just ID. That said, Ryanair want passports but Aer Lingus are fine with just ID.

EU citizens can travel throughout the Schengen Agreement area without a passport, if they have a national id card.

But England was never in the Schengen area so not sure how they got in and out of England? Maybe that was possible on an id card when we were in the EU?

I can use my ID cards to travel between any two Schengen countries (EU + a couple more). I can also use one of them to enter the UK due to residency status. I don’t need a passport in those cases.

The two main categories of people who can travel to (and from, although ID rarely gets checked going out) the UK without a passport are:

1. EU citizens who were given the right to stay after Brexit, who arrived under EU rules where a national ID card was sufficient. That has been "grandfathered in" and so about 1.5 million people can travel to and from the UK with just an ID card.
2. Irish citizens. If they cross the Ireland/NI border there are no formalities. If they fly into a UK airport then they need to prove their Irish citizenship, which can be done with a full passport or an "Irish Passport Card", which is mostly an ID card but has Passport written on it. Ireland, like the UK, doesn't have an official national ID card. I suspect, with no concrete evidence, that the Passport Card was invented after they bought the kit to produce ID cards and then decided not to go ahead with the latter.

For both of those documents (EU national ID card, Irish Passport Card) you can also enter any EU country with it.

UK Border Force staff are fully up to speed with all of the above. However, check-in and gate staff at some EU airports are sometimes a bit clueless and will not let people in one of those two categories board a flight to the UK because "We were told in our training that from October 2022 you need a passport to enter the UK, and then I went for a coffee break and got distracted and skipped the bit about exceptions, and it was a very long list which I couldn't be arsed to read, so I am not going to let you board because if you get denied entry to the UK I will get fired, whereas if I am wrong you will just get denied boarding compensation which is cheaper for the airline to pay, and my boss will praise me for my any-doubt-no-flight attitude".🙄

Sorry I should have been more clear.

They are originally from Portugal and have lived in England for around 10 years I think.

They want to go back to Portugal for a few days and then return to England.

From the replies it could be that they have an I.D card and may not necessarily need a passport then.

It is very unlikely an airline will take them and they most certainly won't get back into The UK even if by some chance they get out ok and into Portugal

Fly Aer Lingus to Dublin and back with driving licence as ID. Fly Dublin to Portugal and back using EU (Portuguese) ID card.

There is some confusion as to whether person will get back into UK with an EU ID card, although if they meet the criteria for entry to UK from EU it shouldn't be a problem, but you never know how the Border Guard will feel on the day.

If person doesn't have any of the above ID they will not be going anywhere!

But England was never in the Schengen area so not sure how they got in and out of England? Maybe that was possible on an id card when we were in the EU?

The Schengen area is (only) a group of countries that have a common short-stay visa policy. Part of the Schengen rules is that all EU (and EEA, and Swiss) citizens get the unlimited free movement in and out of the Schengen zone, regardless of whether their ID card or passport is issued by a Schengen country.

So before the UK (including England😎) left the EU, the situation was the same as it is now for Ireland: When you fly to, say, Spain you have to show that you are an EU citizen because you are crossing the external Schengen border, but an ID card or passport are both OK to show that, and in fact even an expired passport will often work (again, for EU citizens only). Of course, most people on the plane to Spain will be Brits going on holiday, but the Spanish people can enter with their ID cards. (Although since October 2022 they have mostly needed a passport to go to the UK, so they will probably show that to go back to Spain, but they don't have to. Also see my reply from a few minutes ago about people who can come to the UK with just an ID card.)

It's not widely know that the UK actually did issue EU-compatible ID cards, for a brief period from late 2009 until the 2010 coalition government abolished them. About 20,000 people got them, if I remember correctly, and they were able to use them to travel to the EU until they expired after five years.

This...

It’s not necessarily that’s it’s an open border - just that there’s a common travel agreement, you can use other ID like driving license between UK and Ireland but only on some flights - not all airlines accept it.

If they have settled or pre-settled status under the EUSS, yes they will.

Looks like as long as they have (pre) settled status then they don’t need a passport (but would need a valid citizen card which they may not if been here for a long time)

Yes, if they have post-Brexit settled or pre-settled status, they can travel to and from the UK on their ID cards. They will have no trouble getting into Portugal as they are citizens, and they will have no trouble at the UK border. Some UK airports have dedicated passport control lanes for ID cards for exactly these people. See https://www.gov.uk/uk-border-control/before-you-leave-for-the-uk (scroll down to "Check if you can travel with a national identity card").

However, see my earlier comment for possible issues with not being allowed on the plane at the Portuguese end if the check-in or gate staff do not know the rules. Your friends should carry the above link on their phone with a translation app; be prepared to argue their case politely but firmly; be prepared to ask to escalate to a supervisor; allow extra time for check-in; go up first to the gate when the flight is called; and in the worst case, be prepared to miss their flight and demand denied boarding compensation from the airline. In most cases there will be no problem, but with governments increasingly de facto outsourcing their immigration policies to poorly-trained and underpaid staff in other countries, it pays to at least be aware of the potential problem.

I think the general opinion is that since the UK left the EU - your Portuguese friend will require a passport to re-enter the UK. So yes, in this instance your friend needs to apply for a passport.

Many countries don’t need a passport to enter. For example the EU for EU citizens. However you need one to leave.

I had this with the airline once where my passport has less than 3 months left. The country I’m going to requires one month and I also have a ID card which I use to enter. There is no limit on how long you need to have left in your British passport to re-enter the UK. I had to convince them with the foreign office website about the one month validity even though it’s not needed.

This is just to highlight you need a passport to leave the UK even if you don’t need it to enter your destination. They even apply entrance rules on them.