There was a time when you could renew your passport nine months before expiry and have those nine months rolled over onto your new passport. Effectively, the new passport would stay valid for 10 years and nine months.
That was before Brexit. Since the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 and Britain became a ‘third country’, that is no longer the case. Your passport must be valid for 10 years from the date of issue. Any rollover time is simply ignored and is no longer valid for travel to the EU. So even though you may think your passport hasn’t reached its expiry date, those EU rules bed to differ.
Another hard-and-fast rule to bear in mind is that your travel document must be valid for the duration of your stay plus at least another 3 months. That means if you are travelling into the Schengen area, a passport issued for exactly 10 years cannot be used beyond nine years and nine months.
Some travellers have found this out the hard way and, having paid for their holiday, were turned away at the gate, losing their holiday and the hard-earned money they spent. What’s worse is that you cannot claim on your travel insurance for the losses incurred.
It’s a harsh truth, but there seems to be no wiggle room in the prevailing attitude that it is a passenger’s responsibility to ensure their travel documents are valid.
It could be worse; most other countries, including the popular hot spots Maldives, Dubai, Turkey and Israel, require your passport to be valid for six months from the date you arrive in the country.
India requires a more specific 180 days of validity from the date you arrive. It also asks visitors to have two blank pages available for their visa, as does South Africa, Kenya and Madagascar require two blank pages available
Incredibly, Costa Rica requires Britons to have one day’s validity from the day of their departure.
Do check the Foreign Office’s individual entry requirements for the country you’re visiting to make sure your passport abides by their entry rules.
Renewing your passport
If you are travelling anytime soon, HMPO suggests you allow three weeks when you apply online. The cost for this is £102.
There is a fast track service which takes a week, but you need a personal appointment, and you will have to pay a premium of £90. Use this service if your passport is lost or stolen.
If you can’t wait a week, you can still get your passport in a day. This costs £137.50 on top of the standard fee, and is available only for adult passport renewals.