UK passport validity: the rules that actually get checked

Last checked against GOV.UK on 10 September 2026

How long a UK passport lasts

HM Passport Office issues adult passports for 10 years and child passports for 5 years. An adult passport is one issued to somebody aged 16 or over; below that age a child passport applies, and the shorter term is deliberate, because a child's face changes faster than a photograph stays useful.

Those two numbers are the whole of the validity story for a passport issued today. The expiry date printed on the personal details page is 10 years, or 5 years, from the date of issue, and nothing is added on top.

That was not always true. If you applied to renew before September 2018, HM Passport Office added the unused months from your old passport to the new one, up to a maximum of 9 extra months. The practice stopped on 10 September 2018. It matters now because a passport issued under the old rules can show a period of more than 10 years between its issue date and its expiry date, and those extra months are precisely the ones that European border rules ignore.

The two dates, and where to find them

Open your passport at the personal details page, the laminated one carrying your photograph. Two fields decide almost everything:

• Date of issue. The day the passport was produced, not the day you applied and not the day it arrived.
• Date of expiry. The last day the document itself is valid.

Both are printed in the day, month, year order used in the UK, with the month abbreviated in English and French. Read them carefully. A passport issued on 03 JAN 16 expires in January 2026, and a great many people read that as 2016 at a glance and assume they have already renewed it.

Working out what is left

There are two calculations, and a passport can pass one and fail the other.

The first is straightforward: how long until the expiry date. That is the figure most people mean by validity, and it is the one airlines quote when they talk about needing six months left.

The second is how long since the issue date. For travel to most of Europe this is the calculation that catches people out, because a passport with extra months added under the old rules can be more than 10 years past its issue date while its expiry date is still comfortably in the future. The passport checker on this site does both sums at once and tells you which rule, if any, your passport fails for a given destination.

The European rules, stated separately

For travel to the Schengen area, GOV.UK sets out two requirements, and they are measured from different dates. Its wording, on the country by country travel advice pages, is that your passport must:

GOV.UK adds that the expiry date does not need to be within 10 years of the date of issue. In other words, the two rules are independent tests. Passing one tells you nothing about the other.

A worked example makes the difference concrete. Say a passport was issued on 1 June 2016 with 9 extra months carried over, giving an expiry date of 1 March 2027. Somebody flying to Spain on 1 October 2026 and home on 8 October 2026 would find the expiry date is comfortably more than 3 months beyond their return, so rule two passes. But the date of issue is more than 10 years before arrival, so rule one fails, and the passport is not valid for entry to the Schengen area.

The reverse case also exists. A passport issued in 2020 sails through the 10 year test but fails on expiry if it runs out within 3 months of the planned departure from the Schengen area. Note that the clock on rule two runs from the day you leave the Schengen area, not the day you arrive, so a longer trip needs more remaining validity than a short one.

Which countries these rules cover

The Schengen area currently has 29 members: 25 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Bulgaria and Romania became full members on 1 January 2025. Cyprus is an EU member state but has not yet joined the Schengen area, and Ireland has an opt-out from the Schengen rules.

Ireland is a separate case worth knowing. It is in the EU but not in the Schengen area, and Schengen rules do not apply there. British and Irish citizens travel freely between the UK and Ireland under the Common Travel Area, and GOV.UK says British nationals are not legally required to show a passport to enter Ireland, though it is useful for proving identity. Airlines and ferry operators set their own identification requirements, and some accept nothing but a passport, so check with the carrier rather than assuming.

The 90 day limit, which is not a passport rule

Separately from validity, British citizens can visit the Schengen area without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180 day period. Visits to Schengen countries in the 180 days before you travel count towards that total. It is a limit on time spent, not on the document, but it is enforced at the same desk, so it is worth tracking alongside your passport dates.

The six month rule elsewhere

Outside Europe, a common requirement is that a passport is valid for at least six months from the date of arrival. It is not universal and it is not a single global rule: some countries want six months, some want three, some ask only that the passport is valid for the length of the stay. Requirements also change, sometimes at short notice.

Because of that, treat any general statement about six months as a prompt to check the specific country. GOV.UK publishes entry requirements for every destination in its foreign travel advice, and that page is the one to read before booking.

The other things that invalidate a passport

Dates are not the only way a passport fails. A damaged passport can be refused even if every date on it is fine, and HM Passport Office is explicit that if your passport is damaged you must replace it and may not be able to travel with it. A passport reported lost or stolen is cancelled, and stays cancelled, so it cannot be used even if it turns up in a coat pocket the following week.

• What counts as a damaged passport, and what is treated as normal wear and tear.
• Cancelling a lost or stolen passport, and getting home without one.
• When to renew, and how long HM Passport Office says it takes.
• Child passports, which run for 5 years and change at 16.