Due to travel on Sunday, just found out 5 year old sons passport isn’t valid due to brexit HELP

[Shinebright21]

So due to travel to France and Italy via rail from this Sunday.

Mine, my husband and daughters passport are all valid. My sons expires on 31st July and I was under the impression you can travel, until the expiry date and we are back way before then.

Do we cancel and use our insurance to claim the money back, or just risk it and go and see what happens at the border?

Feeling utterly miserable

So essentially (for travel purposes) we are going to lose 3 months every 10 years off our passports?

OP double check the rules AGAIN. I say this as we just had this with DC and the passport was fine (had 6 weeks on it) because it was old style EU passport.

our (new) blue ones need longer on but a child 5yr red passport was fine. We went to France and Canada and no one cared. It was within the rules, honestly.

The 'new' rules came in on 1 January 2021, and have received extensive publicity.

Yes, they might be a consequence of Brexit, but I think the time for blaming Brexit has long passed. The 'extra' moths if you renewed early didn't count for all destinations in the first place, and some destinations require 6 moths validity.

It's all there on the FCDO ravel pages - there's been a thread today about getting those pages updated to include information on abortion services, but I think this thread shows how useless such a step would be in practice, because it shows that people don't check before booking travel, and then cast around, like in the thread title, for someone/something to blame

And I had thought checking was at an all-time high, because of any potential covid issues. Seems not

Can anyone explain to me this 3 month rule and/or the 10 year rule?

What's the bloody point of expiry dates when they appear to be meaningless?

Oh and we entered via the tunnel too, so rail travel like you.

Yes, but that's not Brexit per se.

Whole of EU is moving to all passports being 10 years from date of issue only. So that would have got us with burgundy too. IIRC, it's beyond EU too. It changed in September 2018.

The Brexit bit is that UK passport holders must also have three months left in before the 10 years from issue

Aw OP, I only read about the changes on here - I've not seen it in the news at all, but then, I'm not going on holiday so my brain has maybe filtered it out. Shit situation for you.

The whole system is stupid - an expiry is not really an expiry, you need 3/6 months - the start date isn't the start date, it's the issue date, blah blah blah - load of bollocks!

I wasn’t looking for anyone to blame. I was unaware that BREXIT meant that you couldn’t travel until passport expiry date, and had to have 3 month validity rule in EU.

I am not blaming BREXIT, and saying it’s their fault, I’m saying because of the rule change that I was unaware of, I’m feeling utterly miserable because I know I’ve messed up.

Some of you must be really miserable, to not want to offer any kind words and just kick someone when their down.

Take that negativity somewhere else.

I will keep trying the passport office, and I will do whatever I can. This is our first family holiday, and if I can’t do it this time we will try again.

Up until 2018 up to 9 extra months could be added to your new passport from your old passport making it valid for up to 10y 9m. Since Brexit these extra months are not recognised so to find the true expiry date you need to look at the issue date e.g. issued 1st January 2018 with expiry September 2028 would have a true expiry date of 1st January 2028 so you couldn't travel in Eurooe past that date.

That’s so reassuring to hear! Thank you!

Where did you get that screenshot of the burgundy/new passport rule?

I used this service recently. I managed to get an appointment by accessing the website shortly before 8am. The appointments went live at 8. This was 3 weeks ago, but it worked a treat for us. I'd give that a go first. You may need to travel to get the passport.

I think it was clarified that the 3 months doesn't have to be within the 10 year period so you can look at the expiry date for that part.

Unfortunately you need it to be under 10 years old on the day you travel to the EU so you need to look at the issue date

Happened to us in October last year - we were caught out by the extra 6 months added on to the issue date for expiry. Luckily DH got me to check before we booked (last minute) and we got it in time. Cost a fortune and was so stressful (still Covid restrictions) but we made it.
this is also why I’ve just renewed DD’s passport which runs out in April next year. Taking no chances!
I did read that there is a way of registering your details and getting alerts when passport office appointments become available… will see if I can find the link.

good luck OP, hope you find a way round it.

It is very confusing! There are 2 points:

• For the date you are leaving the UK and arriving in Europe, your passport needs to have been issued within 10 years of the issue date. So, if your issue date is May 28, 2012, it’s no good!
• The date you plan to leave Europe to return to the UK needs to be more than 3 months from the expiry date. So, if you plan to return to the UK on August 1, 2022, your expiry date needs to be earlier than November 1, 2022.

At least that is my understanding of the rules. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.

Found it! It’s on Twitter - @PassportAlerts

So say you had 5 months left on an old passport and renewed it it say started on

5 Jan 2012 so should expire on
5 Jan 2022 but the 5 months would be added on so would shoe expiry of 5 June 2022. However with the rules it's 10 years from the start date.

You still need to go by the requirements of the country you are travelling to so if they say you need 3 months remaining then that's what you need

Completely agree. So rude/judgemental. I’ll join you as all those things said to you as I didn’t realise until recently that this was a thing! I have avoided news for some time after excessively consuming it at the start of the pandemic and completely missed anything about passports. As someone who has only travelled abroad once in the last 12 years due to not being able to afford to, it’s not high on my radar!

Obviously, I meant your expiry date needs to be LATER than November 1, 2022. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I always thought you needed at least three months on your passport, six for the States, long before Brexit. I don't know - but I certainly have seen the press and a dozen or more threads on here about this very thing.
Unfortunately a child passport even with an in person appointment takes a week, and as pointed out you may not get an appointment for a week or so - I had to travel 70 miles to renew my sons when he was unexpectedly invited on a trip with only a months notice and his had expired.
Call your tour operators, try and get a passport office appointment - do whatever you can. But Im not optimistic sadly.

@bellac11 - only if you renewed early. People that did have lost those extra months (up to 9).

About the only time that it doesn't pay to be super organised!

Go to a passport office. Get an emergency appointment. They won’t let you in the passport building without an appointment. It took about 3 days for one to be made and couriered to home with the Durham passport office. It happened to my friend at Easter. Hers had been extended after renewing it early but Brexit hadn’t decided if they were honouring the extension. She was refused check in at Manchester. There were quite a few others who were turned away. She said about 20. If she’d had not checked a bag in, then she’d have been on the plane with her family but I don’t know if they’d have done anything when she got to Lanzarote. The airline said travel companies had been slow to update their websites, booking info etc. I’d have expected to have to put in my passport start and expiry dates when booking so these issues could be flagged up at the time of booking. There’s no harm in having an extra check point on things like that.

I know you can fly back from Iceland to Manchester on a passport photocopy (sixth former lost theirs on a school trip). It’s likely they’ll let you return as they don’t want you staying in their country. The 3 month validity is to cover any unforeseen extended stay, like hospital treatment being needed. I think you might be better off asking on some travel forums.

If you can't get an emergency passport, I'd risk it. No one will care between France and Italy by rail.

Try get an emergency appt

if not one of you go the doctors citing back ache

it can be proven either way but you’ll be able to blah a sick note for claiming on insurance

I know a few who’ve done this

We did manage to get an emergency passport for my daughter once - I realised when checking in that her passport had actually just expired 5 days before we were due to fly. I nearly threw up!

It took two trips to the passport office, the second trip with the whole family and every document we had including birth certs, old passport, travel docs, whatever we could find! They tell you it is a minimum one week for child emergency passport but they can issue them sooner at discretion of a senior bod if both parents consent. Might be worth a go if you can get to a passport office?
we got an afternoon appointment and turned up at 9am saying we would wait in case of an earlier slot, got seen at 9.45 in the end.