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ErnieR wrote on Tue Dec 12, 2023 8:14pm:
A friend of a friend works as a travel agent and sent me an email that they received from ABTA this summer.
“ Travel to Europe now that we have left the EU
With the UK no longer a Member of the European Union (EU), the following requirements now apply to British passport holders when travelling to countries in the EU (except Ireland), as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra,...
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... Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City.
Your passport must be:
Issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (so check the ‘date of issue’)Valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave (so check the ‘date of expiry’).For example, if you are entering the EU on 21 July 2023 and returning to the UK on 4 August 2023, your passport must:
Have been issued less than 10 years before 21 July 2023.Be valid for at least three months after 4 August 2023.If your current passport was issued before 1 October 2018, you might have had extra months from your previous passport added to its expiry date. These extra months do count towards the required three months that you will need on your passport on the day you plan to leave, but it does mean that it’s even more important to check that your passport will also be less than 10 years old on the date you enter the EU. If you’re travelling with children, don’t forget that British passports for under 16s are only valid for five years. This means they will automatically meet the first rule of being issued less than 10 years before entering the EU, so you just need to check it will meet the second rule – that it will be valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave.”
Her advice is that my passport is valid for this trip but that I should print the ABTA email and take it with me just in case.
She said that the people who are refused have more added months than 3 which means that their passport is more than 10 years old hence why they are refused. I wish that I had asked her first before I paid an extra £100 pounds for my fast track passport 🤦♂️
Just to say I decided to take my friends advice and postpone the new passport until I returned. I can confirm that as per the ABTA advice my passport was accepted by EasyJet and at Malaga airport and I replaced it when I returned. It took 10 days from application for my new passport to arrive.
So the advice is your passport must be less than 10 years old when you enter the Schengen area and have a minimum 3 months left until it expires. Extra months do count as long as your passport is under 10 years old when you enter 👍
