What counts as a damaged passport, and what does not

A passport with every date in order can still be refused because of its condition. HM Passport Office draws a line between damage and ordinary wear, and the line is more specific than most people expect.

Published 21 August 2026. Last checked against GOV.UK on 10 September 2026.

The test HM Passport Office applies

Its caseworker guidance on damaged British passports, last updated on 1 June 2026, gives the definition in one sentence: a damaged passport is one which the customer cannot use as proof of identity because of its condition.

That framing is worth pausing on. The question is not how battered the passport looks, or how it got that way. It is whether the document can still do its job of proving who you are and being read by the systems that check it.

What is treated as damage

The public guidance on replacing a passport lists the conditions that mean you need a new one:

• you cannot read any of your details
• any of the pages are ripped, cut or missing
• there are holes, cuts or rips in the cover
• the cover is coming away
• there are stains on the pages, for example ink or water damage

The caseworker guidance is more specific again. It gives as examples of damage: personal details or observation pages that are unreadable, laminate peeling or lifting away from the personal details page, unreadable security details, missing or detached pages, and cases where the front, back or personal details page has been cut. It also covers discolouration from water or chemical spills, tears, rips and bite marks. For the blue e-passport it adds torn perforated numbers, a broken or cracked personal details page, and a chip or antenna showing through the pages.

What is treated as normal wear and tear

The same guidance is equally clear that a passport does not have to be pristine. It describes normal wear and tear as the position where personal details remain legible, there is no evidence of tampering, the binding is intact, the laminate is secure, there are minor tears to the page edges, only slight water damage at the page edges, minor scratches on a blue passport, and a bent personal details page.

A passport that has been carried in a bag for eight years and looks it is not automatically a damaged passport. A soft cover, curled corners and a crease across a visa page are the expected condition of a document in regular use.

What happens if it is damaged

GOV.UK's instruction is short: if your passport is damaged you must replace it, and you may not be able to travel with it. Replacing a damaged passport is a full application at the standard fee, currently £102 online or £115.50 by paper form for an adult, rather than a repair or a reissue at a discount.

The phrase "may not be able to travel" is doing real work. There is no guarantee either way. A carrier's check-in agent, or a border officer at either end of the journey, can decline a document they consider unusable, and neither is obliged to accept a passport because a previous trip went through without comment.

Why chancing it goes wrong

Damaged passports fail unpredictably, and that is the practical problem. The same passport can be accepted on an outbound flight and questioned on the return, or read fine at a staffed desk and fail at an automated gate where the chip is doing the work. The border where it fails is rarely the convenient one.

There is also the loss of what a passport is for. If the personal details page cannot be read confidently, the document has stopped proving identity, and that affects more than travel: it is the same document people use to prove who they are for work, banking and tenancy checks.

How to keep one intact

• Keep it out of a back pocket and away from the bottom of a bag, where the cover takes the worst of it.
• Keep it dry. Water damage that spreads past the page edges moves from wear into damage.
• Do not write on the pages, add stickers, or let anyone but a border officer mark it.
• Do not attempt a repair. Tape and glue on a passport read as tampering, which is a worse problem than the original damage.
• Store it flat rather than folded around a boarding pass or a wad of currency.
• Look at it before you book rather than on the morning of the flight, when there is nothing to be done.

If you are unsure

Borderline cases exist, and the guidance is written for caseworkers rather than travellers. If your passport sits somewhere between a curled edge and lifting laminate, HM Passport Office runs a Passport Adviceline on 0300 222 0000, open Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm and 9am to 5:30pm at weekends and on UK bank holidays, with a webchat and an online enquiry form as alternatives. Asking before a trip costs a phone call. Finding out at the airport costs the trip.