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).

Aaah😂 well that makes sense. I had never had my border agents check if I have right to enter the other country tbh. Just check in staff. But I absolutely believe some do. One gave me speech how they don't care what else I have, they just care that I leave on what I entered on and then sent me on my merry way. Was quite rude about it, bugger

The reigning British Monarch doesn’t need one, but I doubt this question is on their behalf 😃

If she has linked her ID card to her settle status, she can travel to Portugal and come back to U.K. without a passport until 2025

I think this is likely what they’re thinking.

Why only until 2025?

I know they want to go back asap.

The Spanish have always enjoyed being able to slow down The Gibralter border, I remember going from Spain to Gib for the day in the late 80's and on the way back every single passport was checked very slowly - of course they may have been looking for someone specific or had an alert but the Border Guards did seems to be having fun (I speak good Spanish). I have heard that its quite bad since Brexit too, of course The Spanish have every right to do what they want with their border.

Why only until 2025?

That's the rule that was created after Brexit when we were asked to gain settle status. The concession to use ID card was made but only for a limited number of years

Iirc itends atthe end of 2025 so plenty of time for people to sort changes luckily

Airlines generally insist on passports even where border controls don’t. But they could sail to Portugal with no problems.

Read the OP: YANBU - everyone needs a passport to travel (unless you’re the king or something).

I have been out of England since Brexit on the plane & ferry this year to different places in Europe.

My passport has been stamped each time on the way out & on the way back.

This is kind of correct but not quite - first of all the date is the 31st Dec 2025, so another year away, and also they should still be able to use it beyond that but this is likely the cut-off point for needing an ID card with a biometric chip. If the card doesn't have a chip they won't be able to use it after that point (see my earlier post).

The thing they need to make sure of is: if they originally applied for EU settled or pre-settled status using their passport details as their travel document - and that passport has now expired - they must add the details of their national ID card to their UKVI account before they travel, otherwise their details won't correlate at the border and it will cause issues.

Read informed people like @samarrange replies. The OP is asking about a Portuguese citizen (presumably having settled status) leaving UK and entering Portugal on her ID card. EU citizens with pre or settled status can enter and leave the UK on their ID cards. My DH has done this. He's not a King!

I know a UK (English) person who had their passport stolen in a Canary island).
They had to get a crime number
Make appointment at UK embassy on the Canary Island & pay for an emergency passport (valid for 1 week) to be able to re enter the UK.

They then had to apply for their 10 year passport once back in UK

Why doesn't this person just apply for a passport & make their life less stressful & more simple !

Fun fact. Before 1858 passports weren't linked to nationality, and most British people travelling to the continent got a French passport as it was cheaper, if they had one at all. In 1858 the French changed their law to require a passport for entry, but it wasn't until 1915 that you needed a passport to leave the UK.

Ahh ok that makes sense why they hadn’t used a passport before and now they’re rushing to go.

I don’t know.

I wonder if there are rules around applying for a passport and then staying in this country but as you can tell by the thread I have absolutely no idea about these sorts of these.

There has been some red flags and my alarm bells were going off when they said they don’t need a passport and I thought they must be lying but it seems they aren’t and so perhaps I’m being more suspicious than I need to be.

She's probably going to Portugal to apply for her passport as she doesn't want to leave it till the last minute. This is the screenshot from the government site.

I, for example, always go to Spain to renew my passport. It takes 20 minutes there, but 6 weeks if do it at the consulate

Oh ok so if you’re not British born, it’s easier to get a passport in your own country.

That does make sense.

Out of interest, is that at Paris or a smaller airport/port of entry?

My experience (not personal, but from hearing a lot of stories) is that when Brexit happened, a lot of smaller airports which previously almost never had non-EU citizens arriving (the Brits were EU — they had to show their passports to get into Schengen to prove that they were not third-country nationals) got confused because they were told "You need to stamp UK passports now" and didn't stay for the bit where it was explained "Unless they are residents". Whereas I presume that at CDG or Madrid they were already used to American or Russian residents coming in with their residency cards.

The rules are absolutely clear: "No entry or exit stamp shall be affixed: ... to the travel documents of nationals of third countries who present a residence card provided for in Directive 2004/38/EC" (Regulation (EU) 2016/399, Article 11, paragraph 3, subsection g), but there's "what the rules say" and there's "what you're getting, matey". I have somewhere in my folders an EU discussion document in which they note that many member states are very uneven in their application of the Schengen Borders Code.

You can still travel to EU countries using ID cards, but travelling back to the UK without a passport is tricky. Even during the EU days, the border control staff came off as illiterate and had no idea what an id was. And that was their job.

@Anicecumberlandsausage

I went to Spain for my holidays this year and took a trip to Gibraltar for the day. Crossing the border into Gibraltar and coming back to Spain again was a real aggravation, and yes, we needed our passports. (Gibraltar is considered British territory)

Oddly, when we visited Gibraltar from Spain, they checked and stamped our passports into Gibraltar but there was no check back into Spain.

I thought this was strange, and wondered at the time whether we would have needed our passports to fly from UK to Gib, and could perhaps have got into Spain without passports by this route?

Do you know the answer to this @samarrange ? (I've seen you on previous threads and gather you know a lot about travel regs!)

Yeah my husband lost his passport in Spain and had to do this. Luckily getting to the British consulate there was very easy for us, but cost us a fortune rebooking flights etc

Do you know the answer to this @samarrange ?

I'm afraid I don't know anything about the specifics of the Gibraltar situation. It changes regularly, and there also seem to be regular occurrences of Spanish officials "working-to-rule" (except that it's not their union telling them to do that, it's some corner of the Spanish Foreign Ministry).

At one point there was talk (and there may still be) of Gibraltar joining Schengen, so that the border with Spain would be completely open, but when you arrived from the UK you would need to meet the Schengen rules to enter British territory. This would be a real challenge for Schengen because up to now, the native populations of all Schengen countries have had EU freedom of movement rights, which as far as I know Gibraltar citizens don't have.

I assume that the UK government website is accurate and up-to-date, but it presumably can only be definitive about entering Gibraltar from Spain rather than the other way round: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/gibraltar/entry-requirements However, as long as Gibraltar is not in Schengen, I would guess that you need a passport (or an EU ID card) to enter Spain, as you do whenever crossing the Schengen external border.

Eurostar terminal, plus leaving CDG heading to US. Insisted on stamping my UK passport, despite showing ID card. Conversely, arriving back into CDG, ID card was enough.