Foreign Office issues passport rule update for 33 countries - including Spain and Greece

The Foreign Office has issued an important update on passport rules for 33 countries in the EU.

Countries within the Schengen Area require your passport to be no more than 10 years old from the point of issue.

However, most EU countries also require your passport to be valid for at least three months after your date of travel.

This has led to some confusion among UK holidaymakers with many people caught out at airports and unable to board flights due to documents being out of date.

As a result the Foreign Office has issued a clarification of the passport validity rules, updating its advice for 33 countries.

The Foreign Office has issued an important update on passport rules (Getty Images)

The new advice reads: "If you are planning to travel to an EU country (except Ireland), or Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City, you must follow the Schengen area passport requirements.

"Your passport must be:

• issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (check the ‘date of issue’)
• valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the ‘expiry date’)

"You must check your passport meets these requirements before you travel. If your passport was issued before 1 October 2018, extra months may have been added to its expiry date.

"Contact the embassy of the country you are visiting if you think that your passport does not meet both these requirements. Renew your passport if you need to."

It's not just about meeting your chosen destination's requirements either; you'll want to leave yourself plenty of time if you need to get your document renewed.

Earlier this year the Home Office warned renewals could be delayed by up to 10 weeks due to a backlog caused by the Covid pandemic.

Thanks to travel bans and Covid restrictions, it's estimated that millions of UK travellers delayed their passport applications in 2020 and 2021.

Full list of 33 countries with updated travel advice

1. Andorra
2. Austria
3. Belgium
4. Bulgaria
5. Croatia
6. Cyprus
7. Czech Republic
8. Denmark
9. Estonia
10. Finland
11. France
12. Germany
13. Greece
14. Hungary
15. Iceland
16. Italy
17. Latvia
18. Liechtenstein
19. Lithuania
20. Luxembourg
21. Malta
22. Monaco
23. Netherlands
24. Norway
25. Poland
26. Portugal
27. Romania
28. San Marino
29. Slovakia
30. Slovenia
31. Spain
32. Sweden
33. Switzerland

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