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.

It's not EU's choice about the UK.
It is the UK issuing weird passports.

The EU believes a passport shouldn't be valid for more than 10 years. Ever. And just doesn't accept passports over 10 years old as a valid passport from any country. This has always been a rule.

However, the rules for EU-members government issued photo ID are less strict and still going through some harmonization. And, pre-brexit, the UK passport was effectively used as the government issued photo ID, so no-one digged into it's validity "as a passport".
In effect it means that with exiting EU the UK exited this exception from passport validity evaluation.