UK passport holders. Travel to Europe and 10 year checker service.

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Not sure if this has been shared  before, but it is worth mentioning again for UK passport holders as we hopefully start using them again!  This  information is from the Gov.uk site and is applicable to many European countries at the moment. 

There have been some vague press articles post Brexit about the new rules if you previously renewed your passport  early and it has more than 10 years between date of renewal and date of expiry. With the guidelines of having at least 6 months validity left, there are some European countries that will not accept passports  if the renewal and expiry dates are more than 10 years apart. I checked today on gov.uk  which has a very good checker service available.

 

In our case, whilst  husbands passport does not expire until March 23, it was actually renewed in August 12. Which now means with the 6 months remaining rule his  , ‘passport is valid for travel to Europe until at least 2 March 22’.  It would appear that the last months  September 22 -  March 23 are now not valid when considering the 6 month rule and travelling to certain European countries , so we need to be thinking of renewing his passport before joining Quest in April 2022 which is something I had not been aware of.

The gov.uk site is easy to use , just type in your details and it gives instant guidance. I have no knowledge if travellers have actually been refused entry in Europe if the passport does not comply, but I would prefer not to find out myself! 
 

https://www.gov.uk/check-a-passport-travel-europe

 

From the website….
 

Passport validity

We recommend that on the day you travel you have at least 6 months left on your passport. This allows for:

• travelling in Europe for up to 3 months (you don’t normally need a visa for the first 90 days in every 180 days of travel)
• the requirement from most European countries to have at least 3 months left on your passport on the day after you leave

Your passport must also be less than 10 years old on the day after you leave. If you renewed your current passport before the previous one expired, extra months may have been added to its expiry date. Any extra months on your passport over 10 years may not count towards the minimum period needed.

These rules do not apply to travel to Ireland. You can continue to use your passport as long as it’s valid for the length of your stay.