Passport - reassure me!

[JPixie]

I'm having a paranoid panic about my passport...

I'm travelling to Madeira in August 2024. Passport date of issue is February 2015, expiry is November 2025.
That's fine, right? It's still valid for my trip? I remember reading something about some new 10 year rule a while back...

Thank you!

Your passport now effectively expires in Feb 2025. I don’t know if Medeira is 3 or 6 months left for entry. If it’s 6 months you need to check the exact dates.

I think you need to renew as it was issued more than 10 years ago. It's a very quick process. We got ours back in about 2 weeks.

Why wouldn’t it be ok? You have over a year left on it. The rule is 6 months.

A passport only lasts 10 years as a maximum - where on earth have you come up with that idea of a ‘rule’?

Do you have 6 months between your return date and 10 years from the issue date? I think that’s the important thing. So would be an issue if you were returning end of August and it was issued at the beginning of feb.

I would renew it to be on the safe side. If you count back 6 months from February 2025 (10 years + 6 months validity) you are at August 2024. I am particularly conservative though and perhaps Madeira has more relaxed passport controls.

Oh I read the date wrong. You're ok for the 10 year rule but maybe not for what you need left.

@stressedespresso the expiry date can now only be 10 years after the issue date. Not longer, like the OP’s is.

From the government website you need 3 months remaining. So you should be fine with that.

www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/portugal/entry-requirements

Madeira is in the Schengen area, which means that you need 3 months left before the 10 year anniversary of your passport being issued. So you will be inside that.

It's right. They now effectively expire ten years after issue, irrespective of extra time added to them at issue.

Then you still need 3 or 6 months between your return date and the ten year anniversary of the passport's issue.

It's caught a few people out.

On the day you enter Madeira your passport can’t be more than ten years old so you go by the issue date, so you can’t use that passport after feb 2025.

On the day you leave Madeira you go by the expiry date and you have more than a year left so you are fine in August 2024.

Passport validity requirements
Portugal follows Schengen area rules. Your passport must:

1. 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
2. have an ‘expiry date’ at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave the Schengen area

Because there was a time when any remaining months were added on when the passport was renewed. This meant that the expiry date was actually after it has expired. This has caused a lot of people, who have looked at the expiry date and assumed they are fine, to be turned away at the airport.

We have had half a dozen threads on this topic. Like the other people who asked, having been worried by misleading tabloid stories (and, sadly, for a period of 8 or so months in 2020–2021, misleading information on the UK Government web site 🤦‍♂️, now fortunately fixed), you are fine.

What @Retiredearly61 has written is perfectly correct. But as a bonus, here is the relevant text from Regulation (EU) 2016/399, aka the Schengen Borders Code, which you can download in 24 languages from here. (The EU publishes all of its rules, in surprisingly readable form. One of the more annoying features of the Brexit campaign was how it made the EU out to be some secretive cabal, when in fact they are more transparent than any member state government.)

As you can see, your passport meets both criteria:

(i) Validity extends at least three months after intended date of departure: Yes, because you are travelling on XX August 2024 and your intended date of departure must be on or before the same day in November 2024 as you are only allowed three months to stay (and of course you probably have a return ticket for two weeks later anyway). XX November 2024 is about a year before YY November 2025 when your passport expires, so you are OK.

(ii) Issued within the previous 10 years: Yes, because it was issued on ZZ February 2025, and that is less than 10 years after XX August 2024.

Again, you are fine. Enjoy your holiday!

Thank you everyone.

I've read in a few places that it's the border guards decision as to whether they'll require 3 months or 6 months left remaining on the passport. I have 3 months, but not 6. So this is worrying me...

If it’s worrying you re-new it. You will have to do it anyway soon.

my friend did hers in June and got it back 2 weeks later.

Brexit fucked it

Just renew it. It isn’t worth your anxiety. You’ll get it back in a couple of weeks

Why can’t the printed expiry date just be the expiry date 🤦‍♀️

It is for newer passports. They have stopped adding the extra months.

In the past you could renew your passport up to 9 months early and those months were added to its validity date.

So my last passport was issued in November 2014z its expiry date was June 2025.

However under the 'new' rules the extra months no longer counted.

The 10 years was from the issue date, so the expiry date written in my passport was inaccurate for that purpose.

However, it was initially unclear whether the 3-6 months validity some countries ask for would include the extra months or not.

It is now for the ten year rule.
However the 3-6 months validity afterwards now effectively means your passport is no longer valid for the full ten years if visiting many countries.

You go by the printed expiry when working out if you have 3 months remaining after leaving the EU country. The 10 year rule only applies to the date you enter the EU country so it has to be under 10 years old on the day you arrive in your destination country

Passport date of issue is February 2015, expiry is November 2025

You can travel to the EU up until February 2025
Your 3 months remaining doesn't have to be counted back from February 2025 as it is a separate requirement so you are fine for travelling in August 2024.

So the 3 months is worked out from the printed expiry date of November 2025?

I'm so confused! I'm reading in some places that the expiry date as written on my passport is no longer valid, and that my expiry date would now effectively be in Feb 2025. I'm reading in other places that the Feb 2025 is just for the "is the passport less than 10 years old on the date of entry to Portugal"

So the 3 months is worked out from the printed expiry date of November 2025?

yes