Passport Expiry Query

[GimmeGin]

Travelling to Spain
Date of Issue: 11/09/14
Expiry Date: 11/06/25 (so originally valid for 10years + 9months).

Not 100% sure if I will be able to use this for a trip to Spain on 15/06/24? I think it will be OK, as I am reading the official gov.uk guidance:

Passport validity requirementsSpain follows Schengen area rules. Your passport must:

• have a ‘date of issue’ less than 10 years before the date you arrive – if you renewed your passport before 1 October 2018, it may have a date of issue that is more than 10 years ago
• have an ‘expiry date’ at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave the Schengen area

Check with your travel provider that your passport and other travel documents meet requirements. Renew your passport if you need to.
You will be denied entry if you do not have a valid travel document or try to use a passport that has been reported lost or stolen.

But still have doubts, and it's too late to renew now, as existing passport will become invalid whilst waiting for new one.

But sadly, there are a lot of people who have posted the wrong answer, who will be ABSOLUTELY SURE that they know the right answer, even though they don't.

The two tests are independent and the expiry date hasn't changed.

For Spain (or anywhere else in the EU), it has to be less than 10 years old when the OP enters, which means it can be used until 10/9/24.

There also has to be three months left when they plan to leave, but that is irrelevant unless the OP is planning on being in Spain for months on end, entering before September this year, but not planning to leave until after mid March next year, which she couldn't do anyway, due to the 90 day rule.

However, if the OP was travelling outside the EU, to a country that doesn't have the 'less than 10 years old' rule, she could use her stated expiry date of 11/6/25 to enter another country.

Eg if she was going to Mexico, they don't have any rules about the age of the passport, or the time needed before expiry, so she could use her current passport to enter Mexico next May and that would be fine as long as she leaves Mexico before her passport expires.

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/mexico/entry-requirements

OP's passport is fine for travel on the date that she mentioned.

But if you don't believe me, how about we look at the actual EU legislation?

Here (pic) is the relevant text from "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", aka the Schengen Borders Code. You can download it in every EU official language from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/399/oj. The evil jackbooted Sharia-loving champagne-swilling unelected EuSSR bureaucrats are remarkably transparent about the details of their plans to enslave everyone in a globalist's paradise superstate.[^]

Let's look at the passport validity criteria in Article 6, paragraph 1, section (a).

Point (i): "its validity shall extend at least three months after the intended date of departure from the territory of the Member States". OP's passport is valid until 11/06/2025 and any trip she might make on 15/06/2024 has to end by 15/09/2024 (because it can't exceed 90 days). Three months after that is 15/12/2024. That is nearly six months before the expiry date of the passport. Conclusion: ✅

Point (ii): "it shall have been issued within the previous 10 years" (relative to the date of entry). Issue date is 11/09/2014, arrival date is 15/06/2024, thus well within the 10 years. Conclusion: ✅

It's a bit confusing because there are two tests, one involving the issue date (for arriving in the EU) and one involving the expiry date (for leaving the EU). People are not used to this and so try to simplify it in their heads, but they are wrong to do so. And they are particularly wrong to do so and then come and post on here in shoot-from-the-hip mode when they don't fully understand the subtleties.

The UK actually stopped adding time on for early renewal around 2017, when it became clear that the Schengen rules would cause confusion. At the time this was usually called out as "Heartless robbing Tory bastards", but it was probably a good idea. In another 3 years or so there will no UK passports with this issue.

You can also find exactly the same information on the UK government's website here: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/spain/entry-requirements. (There was a time around 2020–2021 when the UK government website actually gave incorrect advice 🤦‍♂️ but it's now correct.)

Overall conclusion: OP's passport is fine for travel on the date that she mentioned. ✅

[^] For the avoidance of doubt, this is a joke.

Extra months were added up until September 2018. We will see issues every year up until September 2028 I suppose.

@samarrange 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

The situation has been resolved and you shouldn’t post links to websites that are unnecessary

@TheJollyDuck

Why are you piping up on a thread that last had a post on 2nd June?

@GimmeGin did you successfully make it to Spain on your existing passport?

@dementedpixie The poster you've quoted was replying to a now deleted post that was trying to promote one of those scammy sites that charges to 'help' renew your passport.

Ah right. Thought it was a bit of a strange comment to make

I wasn’t! I replied to a spam post, as CheeseWisely has pointed out, which I reported and has been removed.
Why are you being so rude?

How was I supposed to know you were replying to a post that was invisible to me? I apologise if you thought I was rude; I just thought it was a strange comment to make on an older post.

Fair enough. Thank you

Hi - just wondering if the experts on this thread could sense check my passport too please! I read it as being fine but have nightmares of getting it wrong... @CheeseWisely @bjorkdidit @samarrange

Passport issued 10 April 2015 and expires 10 Sept 2025. Want to book a trip to EU in February 2025. So on that basis, it will be less than 10 years old when I go (and come back!) and also have 3 months validity left on it (since the original expiry date still counts for this)...

Thank you!

Hi @CherryHinton! Yep, you're fine 🙂

Brilliant, thank you. Just sent off for DS’s new passport and then thought, hold on, what about mine…

Yes, you are fine because, as you have noted:

• It will be less than 10 years old on the day you enter the EU
• It will still have three months of validity left on the day you plan to leave the EU — as long as that date is before 10 June 2025. You didn't say when your date for leaving the EU is, but it has to be earlier than 10 June, because even if you arrive on 28 February, 10 June would be exceeding your 90 days. 😉

Thank you!