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Holidays

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Original poster

Almost expired passport for dc

9 replies

keiralou · 05/07/2013 23:00

We have booked a holiday to Spain and due to return on 31st August. My dd passport expires on 6th September. Do you think we need to renew her passport? Have read conflicting views on this on websites. Just when I'd made my mind up not to renew a friend said we definitely should. If I call the passport office they'll def say we should renew. Any ideas?!? Thanks!

OP posts:

exexpat · 05/07/2013 23:02

I would renew. What if there is something which delays you by a week (illness, accident, another volcano in Iceland etc) - you'd be stuck with an expired passport.

Some countries, and I think some airlines, also have rules about a minimum 3/6 months being left on your passport. Since Spain is within the EU it shouldn't matter so much, but the less you have to argue with bureaucrats about that kind of thing the better.

Bunbaker · 05/07/2013 23:03

Having a passport that runs out seven days after your return is risky. You have plenty of time to renew the passport now, and the expiry date of the new one will still be September even if you renew it now.

revealall · 05/07/2013 23:43

Nah...France Spain and Italy are fine especially if you are coming back in. We didn't even show them coming back on the Eurostar and I've been before with DS on a passport that's gone through the wash.
If you look fairly innocuous that helps too.

TolliverGroat · 05/07/2013 23:50

We're in a similar position (although with both travel and expiry dates a few weeks earlier than you) and opted not to renew until we got back. Spain isn't bothered about having 3/6 months validity on your passport, and last summer there were such huge delays getting renewals done that we decided to wait (of course, it's turned out that this summer renewals are getting processed much faster).

AttilaTheMeerkat · 06/07/2013 08:26

I would renew the passport on return from holiday. Its okay as long as you do return before the expiry date.

I would not renew it now anyway because you may not actually receive it before you do go on holiday.

Facebaffle · 06/07/2013 08:43

You'll be ok as long as you return before the expiry date.

We went to Florida with 3 weeks left on dd's passport. We checked with the US Embassy beforehand and they said it would be ok. We printed out pages from the Embassy website which confirmed it was ok.

A lot of people panic over this and spend money on renewing passports when they don't need to.

Bunbaker · 06/07/2013 11:13

"A lot of people panic over this and spend money on renewing passports when they don't need to."

It isn't wasted money though because they add the extra months back on. I had to renew my passport when we went to Croatia this year because I needed to have 6 months on before the expiry date. It didn't run out until October, but my new passport has October 2023 on it as the expiry date.

wigglesrock · 06/07/2013 18:20

You'll be fine with Spain. My sister and myself have done this with roughly the same timings to Spain and Portugal.

Original poster

keiralou · 09/07/2013 23:32

Thanks everyone for your comments. Think I'll go with the majority and not renew. For those of you commenting on paying... When you have to pay for a child's passport every 5 years and you literally only use it once a year it is worth trying to hold out til the next year... This way I won't need to renew til this time next year. If it all goes wrong returning to this country I'll let you know this course of action is not recommended! X

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