Passport advice please - panicking slightly!

[RedPandaFluff]

DH, toddler DD and I have booked a family holiday to Malta in April - hurrah! Our first holiday for three years! Can't wait. Excited but trying not to be, what with the propensity for things going wrong, restrictions etc.

It's also opened up a world of anxiety for me. I've googled, obviously, but can't figure it out. DH and I both have the old red EU passports. It LOOKS as if we can still travel with them, but I'm only seeing advice like this:

•	valid for at least three months after the date you intend to leave the EU country you are visiting,
•	which was issued within the previous 10 years.”

That doesn't tell me whether I have to apply for a new British passport, or whether my old "EU British" passport is still okay!

Can anyone advise, please? Thank you!

Old passports are still valid. Its just new ones that say UK on them and are blackish.

So as long as its less than 10 years old, its fine.

It's still ok as long as it meets the criteria that you have listed. It's not an "EU" passport - it's a British passport issued when the UK was in the EU. Mine doesn't run out until 2027 and I won't be renewing it until then!

There is a valid to / expiry date on the photo pate of your passport. What is the date on each of the travellers passports?

There’s something on the gov.uk site (I believe) where you enter your passport number and it tells you exactly where u can/can’t go and how long your passport is valid for. Mine was very confusing as it was renewed before the last one expired so the actually expiry date on my passport wasn’t really accurate…

Should say photo page

The key point is about your passport’s expiry date. The FCO/gov.uk travel advice covers that.

Ahhhh that's a relief, thank you.

I think it's been so long since we travelled anywhere that I'm starting to tie myself up in knots about everything that's changed, things that could go wrong, mistakes or misconceptions I could have . . .

@RedPandaFluff

Ahhhh that's a relief, thank you.

I think it's been so long since we travelled anywhere that I'm starting to tie myself up in knots about everything that's changed, things that could go wrong, mistakes or misconceptions I could have . . .

The only non-Covid things we noticed were Roaming charges for phones and we got stamps in our passports.

Just to say on this, your passport is considered valid in Europe for 10 years from the date of issue . This may be shorter than the expiry date as some passport's have time 'added on' which isn't considered valid in Europe.

For example: A passport issued ion 01.01.2010 would be deemed in Europe to be invalid from 01.01.2020 even if the expiry date on your passport says it is valid until 2021 etc.

So if you needed 6 months valid left on that passport to be able to travel in this example you wouldn't be able to travel past 30.06.2019. Does that make sense?

It does, thanks @KitKat1985 - luckily we both have several years left on our passports so all looks good.

The only non-Covid things we noticed were Roaming charges for phones and we got stamps in our passports.
There are roaming charges? I thought that we had been told that Brexit wouldn't affect that....hmm....

I think it depends on the provider, @rifling - I remember reading that it had changed for some, but not all.