The 2023 summer season is fast approaching, which means lots of people will be starting to plan a trip away from Ireland.
Making sure you have everything in order before you head off is key to avoiding any issues on arrival at your boarding gate.
Some passengers headed abroad may not realise that passports, which may appear to be valid, could still put your holiday at risk should they fail to meet certain requirements.
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From the number of blank pages to the condition of your passport, we have rounded up some little-known rules that could catch travellers out.
Cody Candee, CEO, and founder of luggage storage and travel company Bounce, says that only some people are aware of a rule relating to blank passport pages.
"If you run out of blank passport pages you will have to renew your passport sooner than your renewal date," he said.
"Some countries, such as Italy, require a fully blank visa page for valid entry, while others, such as South Africa require at least two. Be sure to check the requirements of your chosen destination before travelling so that you don't get caught out."
When it comes to Irish passports specifically, they “must have enough blank pages to accommodate entry and exit immigration stamps for each country of travel,” according to CBIT visas.
“At least one visa page in your passport is required for each visa. Most travel visas that are stamped into your passport require an entire blank visa page.
“A 'blank' visa page must be clean, clear, and not show ink or stains from any other pages in the passport”.
Other things you should be aware of is that if you haven’t been away in a while, because of Covid, work, or the ongoing cost of living crisis, you should check your passport immediately to ensure it’s in date.
Passengers are warned that if they haven’t travelled in a long time - and therefore have not looked at or used their passport - they need to check how long ago it expired.
You can renew online from anywhere in the world, as long as your previous Irish passport is no more than 5 years out of date.
If it expired longer than five years ago, you will be treated as a first-time applicant and will see your wait time jump from 10 to 35 working days.
As well as this, if you reside in Ireland but hold an international passport, in order to travel into a Schengen member country you must ensure that your passport is valid for at least 3 months.
This must be calculated from the date of departure from the Schengen member country.
You should also check the condition of your official travel document before heading to the airport.
According to citizens’ information, if your passport is in any way damaged, you can be turned away at the airport - this includes water damage, severe scratching on the identity card page, faded pages, loose binding, tearing on the cover, and so on.
Anything that can hinder identifying the passport as legitimate and belonging to the holder is considered enough damage to be turned away by airport staff.
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