Stupid question but…please reassure me! Passport woe

[Batwoman3]

Booked to go to France august this year returning to UK August 29th. I am now panicking about my passport and the whole ten year/3 month/6 month rule and thinking, shall I renew before just incase they refuse me!

my passport was issued 27/5/15
expiry date 27/5/25

so I’ll have 9 months left on it when I return to Uk. I am worried they’ll turn me away and would be just my luck to have to wave my family off whilst I’m stuck behind.

i am right that there is more than enough time on my passport and my passport runs out for shengen zone 27/2/25?
I panicked with it being all over the news today and really don’t want to spend £82.50 renewing it, if I don’t have to yet.
thank you

I'd renew it

You’re fine.

you need 3 valid months when you return, you have way more.

Gov website says 3 months left is needed on your date of return, which it will be and it must be less than 10 years old, which it is.
I just panic and hearing of people being turned away makes me think, I could just renew then it’s done.

It really isn't quite that simple any more. It may not be the expiry date it will be 10 years from the issue date because they won't take into account any time that used to be factored in free of charge.

Yes but in those cases they are using their expiry date like a previous poster told you to look at. As long as your issue date plus 10 years still gives you 3 clear months you are fine.

Don't want to get stuck in France

The ambiguity is around what is classed as the expiry date. Previously you could apply early and have the additional time added on to the expiry date. So if you applied 3 months before your passport expired the expiry date would be 10 months and 3 months after the issue date. Now you can't have that "free" 3 months

The actual expiry date is 10 years from the issue date (whatever the expiry date in the passport says). This is what catches people out.

Example Issue date: in passport 1 January 2015
Expiry date: in passport 15 March 2025.

ACTUAL expiry date is 31 December 2024 ie. 10 years after issue date.

So mine is all good and I can happily go without panicking about being stuck anywhere.

Thanks all, I am a worrier 🙃

OP with those dates you have nothing to worry about because your passport passes both tests comfortably.

You will have more than 3 months left and
it is less than 10 years old.

The people who have to worry are people like me who applied for their last passport early because that was the advice at the time - they would add up to 9 months remaining from the old passport onto the new passport so you could time renewal when you weren't going away and/or at a quiet time of year.

For example, my passport doesn't expire until September 2026 so I could think I would be OK until May/June 2026 as long as there's a full 3 months left.

However my passport was issued in January 2026 so if I tried to travel on it in April 2026 I can't use it to enter the EU because, even though it still has more than 3 months left, it is more than 10 years old so invalid. I will reapply for my passport in December 2025.

If I were you I'd reapply for a new passport in January 2025 as they're usually quiet at that time of year and it will likely come back in a week or two.

Why on earth would OP get "stuck in France" when her passport is valid for 9 months after the date of her return?

OP has said that there were no extra months added. Her expiry date is exactly 10 years after the issue date. Therefore it is valid until May 2025 which is way longer than the three months needed if she is exiting the Schengen area in August 2024.

It's been widely publicized on the BBC today that people are getting refused travel because they have overlooked/not been aware of that fact that it used to be possible to add extra months on at the time of renewal (my old passport was issued in July 2014 and the expiry date showed as Dec 2024 because of extra months being added at the time of issue) but your passport is now - post-brexit - only actually valid for ten years from the date of issue regardless of what the expiry date says.

It needs at least 3 months on it and it needs to have been issued within the last ten years. You are fine on both counts.

@Spirallingdownwards

"The ambiguity is around what is classed as the expiry date. Previously you could apply early and have the additional time added on to the expiry date. So if you applied 3 months before your passport expired the expiry date would be 10 months and 3 months after the issue date. Now you can't have that "free" 3 months

The actual expiry date is 10 years from the issue date (whatever the expiry date in the passport says). This is what catches people out.

This is not correct - the Expiry Date is the one printed in the passport.
The "free months" are still valid and important - see below.

Example Issue date: in passport 1 January 2015
Expiry date: in passport 15 March 2025.

ACTUAL expiry date is 31 December 2024 ie. 10 years after issue date."

This is not entirely correct.

Two dates are relevent - the Issue Date and the Expiry Date - and they are relevent for different rules and both rules have to be met.

The rule regarding the Issue Date for entry into Schengen is that the passport must have been issued within the last 10 years, so for entry a passport issued on 1 Jan. 2015 is valid until 31 December 2025 (as long as the Expiry Date rule is also met).

BUT - the rule regarding the Expiry Date is that there have to be 3 months after the date that the traveller plans to leave the Schengen Area. In your example, assuming that the traveller is spending more than one day in Schengen and intends to arrive on Dec 31st 2024 the passport is invalid because the 15th March 2025 expiry date is less than 3 months away. The latest date that the traveller can leave Schengen on this passport is 14th Dec. 2024, so clearly they have to travel before 14th Dec 2024. If the Expiry Date was later than 1st April 2025 the passport would still be valid until 31st December 2024

Then you'd be a bit daft then!

The passport is valid until May 2025 so has 9 months remaining when they return to the UK. OP only needs 3 months remaining so their passport is perfectly fine to be used without being renewed

Re: the 10 years expiry and 3 months remaining; the rules are independent of each other.

• The passport need to be under 10 years old on date of entry so at that point you look at the Issue date and add 10 years on to get the true expiry and ignore any extra months added.

• you need 3 months remaining when you leave the EU. For this you can look at the actual expiry date as the 3 months remaining don't need to be within the 10 year period calculated above.

Glad to see this thread, I am so confused by this too!

We are travelling to Cyprus on 27 June 2024 for 14 nights

Passport:

issue date - 23 Jan 2015
expiry date - 23 March 2025

will this be ok???😬
TIA

Yes its fine

Issue date - 23 Jan 2015 - 10 years from then is 23 Jan 2025 (use this as the expiry date for entry into the EU) so on 27th June 2024 your passport is within 10 years old.

Expiry date - 23 March 2025 - You will be leaving well before this date so this is fine too. You only need 3 months remaining from the date you leave Cyprus

Why? She's well within the time limits.

I understand the possible confusion if one of your dates (expiry or 10 years since issue) is within 3 months of your trip, but I really do not understand why people are worked up when both dates are significantly MORE than the 3 months (or 6 months in the case of certain countries).

And renewing a passport that has 9 months on it when you travel is batshit crazy.

Here is the actual text of the actual Schengen Borders Code, aka "Regulation (EU) 2016/399 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on a Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders".

If you need some bedtime reading (it's very good for insomnia), you can download the full document from here https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32016R0399 in 24 languages. In fact you can download every piece of EU legislation from that site in 24 languages, because despite being evil Sharia-loving jackbooted agents of the EuSSR superstate [froths at the mouth for several more pages], the unelected champagne-swilling Eurocrats in Brussels are also surprisingly transparent.

And as you can see, OP, you are absolutely fine.

Sorry can I check (don't want to start own thread just for one question)

Passport issue 14 Aug 2014
Passport expiry 14 Aug 2024

Going away and returning on 29 April 2024.

Is it valid?!

Three months before 14th August is 14th May. So April is fine @Ledci