Schengen/EU entry and 10 year passport rules

jj42

I’m planning on travelling to Italy this year, entry date 27th July 2024 then travel overland to France and return home on 11th August 2024. My passport is a 10 year UK passport issued on 20th October 2014, but it has additional months added so the expiry date is in June 2025.

Reading the passport entry rules it seems like I’d be ok to travel without renewal as:

1. The date of entry into the Schengen area is within 10 years of issue
2. I return to the UK more than 3 months before expiration 

I just wanted to clarify on point 2 as the 3 months after my exit date takes the passport over the 10 years since issue by about a month, despite not expiring until June 2025.

Will my passport be ok to travel on or will I need to renew? Thanks 

TELLIT01

In theory you are correct that your passport complies with all requirements.  However, if you intend to fly you need to check the requirements of the airlines too.

eskbanker

TELLIT01 said:

In theory you are correct that your passport complies with all requirements.  However, if you intend to fly you need to check the requirements of the airlines too.

Can't say I've heard of any airline with published policies that OP would fall foul of, but there have sometimes been reports of individual staff not understanding/accepting such policies, not that there's much that can be done about that!

TELLIT01

eskbanker said:

TELLIT01 said:

In theory you are correct that your passport complies with all requirements.  However, if you intend to fly you need to check the requirements of the airlines too.

Can't say I've heard of any airline with published policies that OP would fall foul of, but there have sometimes been reports of individual staff not understanding/accepting such policies, not that there's much that can be done about that!

I don't think it's much of a problem now but a well known Irish airline had its own interpretation of the rules when they first came in.  It wasn't a case of individual staff not accepting them.  Better safe than sorry for all the time it would take to check.

bex2012

You will need to check your passport expiry date. My understanding is that since Brexit any additional months that were added to passports pre 2018 are no longer valid, so if your passport was issued in October 2014, it will expire October 2024, regardless of the additional months.

https://www.abta.com/sites/default/files/2019-01/Passports%20QA-Jan-2019.pdf

Caz3121

bex2012 said:

You will need to check your passport expiry date. My understanding is that since Brexit any additional months that were added to passports pre 2018 are no longer valid, so if your passport was issued in October 2014, it will expire October 2024, regardless of the additional months.

https://www.abta.com/sites/default/files/2019-01/Passports%20QA-Jan-2019.pdf

incorrect - and initially caused some airlines to incorrectly deny boarding to passengers until properly clariffied

There are 2 checks for travel to EU

• issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (check the ‘date of issue’)
• valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the ‘expiry date’)

the expiry date is the one printed on the passport ( which may not be 'issue date + 10 years')

eskbanker

bex2012 said:

You will need to check your passport expiry date. My understanding is that since Brexit any additional months that were added to passports pre 2018 are no longer valid, so if your passport was issued in October 2014, it will expire October 2024, regardless of the additional months.

https://www.abta.com/sites/default/files/2019-01/Passports%20QA-Jan-2019.pdf

As above, that's wrong, perhaps unsurprisingly for a document that's five years old and written before the post-Brexit arrangements had been agreed!

The correct rules are shown in the first post of this thread (and in many other places more reliable than an old ABTA document!).

Neil49

Caz3121 said:

bex2012 said:

You will need to check your passport expiry date. My understanding is that since Brexit any additional months that were added to passports pre 2018 are no longer valid, so if your passport was issued in October 2014, it will expire October 2024, regardless of the additional months.

https://www.abta.com/sites/default/files/2019-01/Passports%20QA-Jan-2019.pdf

incorrect - and initially caused some airlines to incorrectly deny boarding to passengers until properly clariffied

There are 2 checks for travel to EU

• issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (check the ‘date of issue’)
• valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the ‘expiry date’)

the expiry date is the one printed on the passport ( which may not be 'issue date + 10 years')

Many thanks for clarifying the rules on this. 

I also have a passport that runs for 10 years and 8 months and had diarised a renewal date well in advance of what thought was a cut off at 10 years. 

jj42

Hey everyone, just wanted to give you a bit of an update. Despite the EU entry rules being quite clear, I spoke with Ryanair "customer service" agents (I am flying into the EU with Ryanair) and they informed me that their rules on the expiry date are different:

"For the UK citizens on international flights the rules are as follows: the passport should be valid for at least 3 months + period of stay, a passport cannot be used if its validity exceeds 10 years."

Implying that the expiry date needs to be within the 10 years too. When challenged on the divergence from EU entry rules, the response was:

"If you travel with Ryanair you should follow Ryanair 's rules. Travel rules by car, train , bus are different from by aircraft."

Given that and not wanting to be refused entry at the gate, and the fact that I'm travelling in a month, I am renewing my passport urgently as I don't want to ruin a family holiday for the sake of a hundred quid or so.

It's very disappointing, but I'd rather be disappointed now than when travelling.

NoodleDoodleMan

"a passport cannot be used if its validity exceeds 10 years."

This doesn't make sense in respect of a British citizen - UK standard issue passports have a 10 year lifespan.

"Implying that the expiry date needs to be within the 10 years too."

Which is the current position, is it not ?

 

Caz3121

the Ryanair UK terms and conditions state (note these are 2 separate rules)

• UK passport holders travelling into a Schengen*/EU member country (excluding Ireland) as of 1st January 2021 must make sure that their passport:

is valid for at least three months from the date they will leave the Schengen member country unless the person has a Schengen-issued residence permit or long-term visa. 

was issued within the previous 10 years upon the date of arrival unless the person holds a Schengen-issued residence permit or long-term visa, in which case no specific passport validity requirements apply.

"a passport cannot be used if its validity exceeds 10 years" makes no sense. That would mean that any passport previously issued with additional months 'cannot be used' which is obviously not the case. The correct response would have been that a passport cannot be used if it has been issued more that 10 years before date of travel (applicable for EU travel)