To shout at everyont to CHECK YOUR PASSPORT ISSUE DATE!! Not the expiry date...

[FusionChefGeoff]

I used to work in travel for fucks sake.

Both DH and my passports are not valid for our upcoming holiday to France as they are issued more than 10 years ago as of last week. They are both 'in date' if you look at the expiry date - but I completely forgot / missed the fact that doesn't matter any more.

Your passport MUST be less thatn 10 years old based on the issue date for you to travel to the EU.

Luckily, I can go to Peterborough on Monday and there are appointments for a 1 day service but fuck me £450 for 2 passports.....

Thank God I checked today and not the day before we leave.

Jesus I am still shaking. Hope I can help someone else avoid a holiday disaster with this public safety warning.

There is more truth in the former though? The UK did in fact feel they could have all the benefits, but not do the paying in. Is that not stitching up? The UK has not respected an internationally binding treaty (the good Friday agreement), profoundly influencing an EU member (Ireland), but has footstamped and demanded special status. Why would the Eu be inclined to grant it?

I have an EU passport, as do my children thank goodness. But my upset over the stupidity of brexit will never leave, so this would not be something I would ever forget.

My passport was issued 20 April 2016 and it's expiry date is 20 Sept 2026. I must have applied for renewal a bit early and they added on the difference.
This means I can't travel on it to the EU after 20 January 2026 because it has to have 3 months validity after the date of travel

@OurMavis this isn't strictly true. You can travel into the EU until 20th April 2026 as your passport will be within 10 years until then. The 3 months remaining is calculated from the actual expiry date printed in the passport so is fine for travel until the above date.

I didn't know this OP. THANK YOU !

I might as well fling in that you can’t flush tampons that half the menstrual population seems not to know

Thanks for the reminder! Hope you get sorted and sorry you got a shock.

You have just made me check mine as going to france end of the month and had a little panic but mine was issues 2019 thank God

Why are people being so smug and sneery about this? As much as there were media reports about it, a lot of those reports have shown how many people were caught out by this! The OP is trying to do a favour here, and no doubt has helped plenty of people. If you already knew, well, good for you, but why bash the OP? 🙄Anyway OP, enjoy your holiday and hope you can put this behind you.

Wrong
The 3 months is a separate requirement
The 3 months can be calculated using the printed expiry date.
In the past there was a lot of confusion and some people were wrongly denied entry. The requirements have now been clarified and are:

When entering the EU it must be under 10 years old - look at issue date
When leaving the EU it must have 3 months remaining- look at expiry date

Someone I know fell foul of this and found out at the airport that her passport wasn’t valid. Very sadly she had to let DH board the plane with 2 young DCs, book herself an emergency next day appointment in London and a replacement flight, and check into a hotel solo overnight. Devastating. Just in case anyone else is tempted to not renew theirs…

Hardly devastating, just an inconvenience and unexpected expense.

It's not like she was held abroad and sent to prison or something....

OP I didn't know this - although I travel a lot, it's very very rarely to Europe. I'm now making plans to get an emergency same day passport on Monday so THANK YOU!

Well to be fair, in return, we were able to ban almost all “insecure ID cards” from the European Union, EEA and Switzerland being used at the UK border from October 2021 (time limited exemption for those with settled/pre-settled status) - which according to UK Border Force were the “most abused documents”, accounting for almost half of all false documents detected at the border.

^https://www.thenumbersmith.co.uk/news/uk-border-force-bans-eu-eea-and-swiss-national-id-cards-what-you-need-to-know^

Hope you can get it sorted out OK, and you are quite right to mention this OP.

Though if anyone voted for Brexit and you are caught out, no sympathy.

Looking further into those figures, it would have reduced the number of fake document being presented from around 5 per day for the whole country to 3. Considering that Heathrow airport alone sees over 100,000 arriving passengers per day, I dont think it was ever the biggest problem.

Well, we had quite a good deal until we voted ourselves out.

Phew for you! This happened to my colleague except she found out at the border and was denied entry to France. After hearing I went and checked my passport to find mine was also affected. I would have totally missed this.

I'm grateful OP. I didn't know this.

I travel regularly, and always thought it was just "3 months+ before the expiry date").

I'm just figuring our when to renew my passport (issued Nov 2015, expires Aug 2026). We're going to France in Aug 2025, and I need to travel for work in September and October. So I guess the answer is November.

Until your post i thought I could easily leave it until the New Year.

Is the topic of this thread 'the biggest problem'?

I think I remember reading that around 2,000 false documents were seized at the border per year, but how many people using fake EU ID cards slipped through the net per year (often at smaller airports or ports)? Clearly people were often not caught.

Thank you, this was my understanding. Passport must be less than 10 years old throughout your stay but the expiry still counts towards your month's needed even if it's over 10 years.

It's complicated and I'm glad they stopped issuing them.

THANK YOU OP!!!! We go on holiday in 2 weeks and my issue date was 10 years and a week ago. Had not clocked this at all, you’ve saved the day

Without knowing your passport dates and travel dates I can't comment on your particular issue @OldFamilyTable . Easyjet were wrong if your passport passed both independent tests

Are you prone to being annoying?

Thanks, OP. Appreciate the heads-up.