UK Passports in Europe after Brexit

[clarky213]

For anyone taking a Med Cruise with a UK Passport, in the event of a no Deal Brexit, your passport must be less than 9 yrs 6 months from the issue date when you travel. Expiry date is irrelevant if like me, they added the remaining 6 months onto my renewel. ( Issued Aug 2009, Expires Feb 2020).

 

Probably worth renewing now, rather than wait until March.

 

Full details here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/passport-rules-for-travel-to-europe-after-brexit 

 

Only checked this by chance as I have a week booked in Spain in June, Don't want to be waving to DW as she boards the plane without me😥

[jocap]

I think I've read that they're not going to add on the extra months, which is a shame- I had 5 months added last time.

I couldn't travel on a P&O UK ship with less that 6 months, although the cruise was entirely in Europe, but the company said no, so I had to replace my passport 5 months early.

[MicCanberra]

I suppose there are going to be many changes to how things work whether Brexit goes through smoothly  or not.

[Heidi13]

7 hours ago, jocap said:

I think I've read that they're not going to add on the extra months, which is a shame- I had 5 months added last time.

I couldn't travel on a P&O UK ship with less that 6 months, although the cruise was entirely in Europe, but the company said no, so I had to replace my passport 5 months early.

Same here, I was very pleasantly surprised at my last renewal when I got an extra 5 or 6 months.

 

Are passports reverting back to Dark Blue covers after Brexit? Never did like the red ones.

[Bloodgem]

2 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

Same here, I was very pleasantly surprised at my last renewal when I got an extra 5 or 6 months.

 

Are passports reverting back to Dark Blue covers after Brexit? Never did like the red ones.

Anyone applying for a passport from October 2019 will be given a blue cover.

[MicCanberra]

I wonder why countries don't go for a very distinctive colour or colours, like a pastel or multicolured one.

[john watson]

24 minutes ago, MicCanberra said:

I wonder why countries don't go for a very distinctive colour or colours, like a pastel or multicolured one.

 

Under the previous rules you could apply for a new a passport at anytime, even with three years remaining on the pre-existing one.  A maximum of nine months could be added where you apply with up to nine months validity remaining to retain the same anniversary date of expiry.

 

There are now internationally agreed rules on the photos, format, size and design of countries passports.  This is, I assume so that the computer readers which are on the consoles of the border officials can read the data and ascertain that there are no problems with admitting a particular person.  The official mainly needs to ensure that the photo is the same as the person in front of them and the person is showing not suspicious traits.   Others will be doing behind the scenes main investigations on luggage and other technical checks.

 

I think the colour is chosen by the countries, mainly I suspect on their national colours or flag colours with some consideration about durability. The EEC had a standard colour with different national symbols printed plus a statement that country was within the EU.

 

Regards John

Edited January 9, 2019 by john watson

[MicCanberra]

Thanks for the information. So many countries have either Dark blue, dark Green, or dark Red. I would think a yellow or pastel Green would be much more distinctive.

[jocap]

13 hours ago, Bloodgem said:

Anyone applying for a passport from October 2019 will be given a blue cover.

I'll just miss it, then! 

Not that it really bothers me, still having the EU colour for another 10 years- in my experience, I've been nodded through many a gateway in Spain etc just by them seeing the colour....

[MicCanberra]

1 hour ago, jocap said:

I'll just miss it, then! 

Not that it really bothers me, still having the EU colour for another 10 years- in my experience, I've been nodded through many a gateway in Spain etc just by them seeing the colour....

Ours a blue as well, they still checked ours a few times.

[John Bull]

It seems that those who renewed since last September have received new passports with just the bare 10 years from the date of their application ie for them the up-to-9-months "credit" has already disappeared.

Even though that, plus Schengen's new minimum  6 months validity,  robs folk of a few weeks / months validity and encourages them to renew dangerously late, c'est la vie - that's the way it's been in many other countries including Canada.

 

But there are two big concerns that the powers-that-be don't seem to have taken into account

 

1. T/As, airlines, cruise lines, etc have been pretty good at telling folk that they need xx months validity beyond their departure date.

No doubt that will continue but with up-dated info.

But many folk will have already booked their holidays for the summer and will have already been told  by T/As etc. about validity Were the changes known by the travel trade when they booked? 

 

2. I couldn't believe Clarky's assertion that the expiry date on existing passports would not be honoured, and several news sites didn't mention it.

So I used the tool on the gov website linked by Clarky, with a selection of random dates. 

Clarky's right.

Each time I used a travel date over 9.5 years beyond a passport's issue date it told me that for Schengen countries I needed to renew before travel, even tho the expiry date was more than six months beyond the date of travel.

Publicity in the media will overcome that for those with an expiry date loomng - but will those whose passports expire in 2028 remember????????

That's a ridiculous state of affairs 

 

JB 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2019 by John Bull

[lisiamc]

JB, you’re right.  I had heard that the extra months on passport renewal would no longer be given, but I hadn’t heard that the expiry date on my current passport (which has some extra months on it) could be a problem until I read it here.  Mine expires next year, so at least I can renew it early before I’ve had a chance to forget.

[ollienbertsmum]

The six month expiry date is not just a Brexit thing it has been a thing for travel companies for a while.  I had to renew my passport in a hurry before my last NCL cruise (gutted because my hair was a mess in the photo!!) because they would have turned me away with only 14 weeks left.   I had checked for my US trip a few months earlier but thought that staying in Europe would not be an issue.  

 

I still feel the panic when I noticed the small print telling me I had to do it.  I was only reading the small print to check something about the luggage labels.  

[jocap]

2 hours ago, ollienbertsmum said:

The six month expiry date is not just a Brexit thing it has been a thing for travel companies for a while.  I had to renew my passport in a hurry before my last NCL cruise (gutted because my hair was a mess in the photo!!) because they would have turned me away with only 14 weeks left.   I had checked for my US trip a few months earlier but thought that staying in Europe would not be an issue.  

 

I still feel the panic when I noticed the small print telling me I had to do it.  I was only reading the small print to check something about the luggage labels.  

Yes, panic is what I felt when I discovered the same...I'd been planning to change my passport early because we were going to Egypt after a Med cruise, and thought it would be fine for that...but no, the cruise ship needed the extra 6 months too.