EU 10 years passport rule: what British travellers to France need to know

There have been new reports in the UK press of Britons being caught out over the EU’s 10 years rule for non-EU passports – highlighting the importance of understanding this correctly.

A couple told The Independent that they wasted more than £500 after they were unable to board a flight to Greece due to their passports being deemed invalid.

“We were not informed clearly enough by anybody,” they said. “We didn’t get it because we saw the expiry date rather than the date of issue as being [a potential] problem.”

What does the rule say?

If you are a UK or other non-EU national looking to enter France from outside the Schengen area on a visit, your passport should have been issued no more than 10 years ago on the date you enter the area.

So, you should look at the date of issue, and check that it is no more than 10 years earlier than the date you plan to enter the EU.

This is important as British passports issued before October 2018 may have an expiry date that is more than 10 years after the issue date. Passports issued since then will have been issued for exactly 10 years.

The UK formerly allowed people to renew their passports early, in which case the time left to run on the previous passport was added to the new one.

The practice was accepted while the UK was in the EU, as only the validity of the passport is significant for EU citizens, however, there is an EU rule that passports of ‘third country’ (non-EU/non-EEA/non-Swiss) visitors entering the bloc should have been issued no more than 10 years ago.

The passport’s ‘expiry date’ must also be at least three months after the date when you intend to leave the EU.

If in doubt, for example if you have no return ticket or fixed return date, you may wish to ensure the passport has six months left to run on entry, meaning a Briton could spend a maximum 90 visa-free days in the Schengen area and then return with three months left still to run.

Why was this introduced? 

The Connexion first highlighted the issue of a Briton who was refused boarding for this reason in autumn 2021, when UK media The Daily Telegraph called it “a strange quirk in the Brexit agreement”. 

It has continued to resurface periodically, such as in spring 2024, when there were reports that in some cases, people had been able to book tickets, check in to flights and go through airport security but had then found themselves denied entry to the plane at the UK departure gate.

The fact that this rule now applies to Britons is a result of Brexit, but it was not created by the Brexit agreements.

It derives from EU law creating uniform rules for non-EU visitors coming into the Schengen area.

Similarly to the rule on staying no more than 90 days in any 180 days, it is the usual rule applied to non-EU citizen visitors.

It was first introduced for those applying for short-stay visitor visas to the Schengen area.

It was introduced for all non-EU visitors in a 2013 regulation and remains part of the current Schengen Borders Code at article six.

In its summer 2020 information campaign aimed at updating travellers about coming Brexit changes, called The UK’s new start: Let’s get going, the UK government advised that passports would need to be less than 10 years old.

The advice is repeated in the current official FCDO France travel advice.

In most cases UK passports can be renewed within about three weeks through the standard online process.

However, those travelling in coming days or weeks may opt to use a more expensive fast-track process to make sure the document is valid before their date of departure, if they see their passport is no longer valid for the EU.