passport advice needed

[myname]

does anyone know how long you need left on your passport to travel around Europe.

I phoned the british passport advice line but they couldn't tell me, they suggested that to be safe I should renew my passport before it's got less than 6 months on it. Too late for that, i've got about 2 months left on it and was hoping to go away sometime in June which would be near the end of it.

I've tried to phone a couple of european consulates but haven't had any help from them either.

Does anyone know what the restrictions are on passport expiry time left for europe?

thanks

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Why not just get a new one now to be on the safe side.

There's nothing worse than being stuck in a country illegally, although if it's a nice country it's not too bad

[myname]

the passport office said it could take 6-8 weeks to come through, which might mean that it wouldn't come through in time for me to go away, i can only go early june

[marts]

Nah - you can get it prioritised in a couple of weeks. Or if its really urgent pay a bit more and come to London - they'll do it in about 4 hours. i had to do this for India last month.

[myname]

oh, how do you go about getting it prioritised? does it cost more?

[marts]

Link Here explains all the options :)

http://www.passport.gov.uk/passport_renewing_when.asp

[Bahnhof Strasse]

You can get one in 24 hours if you pay. It's about £150 though.

In EU countries your passport only needs to be valid whilst you are in the country. In reality they'll not do anything if you try to leave an EU country with an expired passport, heading for the UK.

As most of the EU is signed up to Schengen, you only need to show your passport upon entry to the first country.

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I paid arouund £100 in Singapore and it was done within 5 hours after initially being told it would take 10 days, then 5 days. Was worth the extra cost :D

Of course, I did have to pay to stay at the airport hotel the night though but it was very nice :o