My husband and I are inexperienced travelers. We're supposed to leave today for England from the US. We will spend most of our time in England, but had a four day trip to Paris planned in the mix. We already bought train tickets. We just realized last night that my passport expires within three months of our trip. I keep reading that France requires that at minimum. Does anyone here have practical experience as to whether they would refuse us on the Eurostar into France? Do they check? We are heartbroken.
Posted by
Queens, NYC
571 posts
They will check, as French passport control -- i.e. where the border control agents will stamp your passport and allow you entry to France -- occurs in London before you board the train to Paris.
Unless the border control agent for some reason doesn't notice (which is unlikely), they will check/flag this and likely deny you entry to France, which practically speaking in this case means you will not be able to board the train out of London.
Posted by
Maastricht
5 posts
Yes, as Andrew said, the validity of your passport is one of the things they check. Terrible luck! But at least this is one of those mistakes you only make once. I would be heartbroken too.
Posted by
Lynnwood, Washington
8882 posts
We recently had a similar circumstance on the forum where the poster decided to “try anyway”. His entry was rejected.
The good news is that you found this out before you were standing there in line. You have time to cancel those arrangements and add 4 days of fun to your UK trip.
Posted by
Chicago
2047 posts
At least when I traveled passports were throughly checked. I suppose you could try but chances are you are out of luck.
Another reason why I think the State dept should send out reminders of expiration dates.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33837 posts
even though the UK doesn't enforce that rule you could still run into problems today at the airport
Posted by
PA
2857 posts
As for the state department sending renewals, note that the only address they might have on you is the one where you made your last application from, and even your address then is not part of your passport. This is completely unreasonable to ask the government to track this for you.
Posted by
Paris
10200 posts
If you do a renewal on lien now, you should ahve more than enough time to get your renewed passports and avoid any issue.
How in the world ? They are leaving today.
Posted by
PA
2857 posts
Kim--sorry. Old eyes, saw the "less than 3 months" and missed "today", probably because I never expected that would have been the question! Should have realized a first-time poster could have asked that. Edited my response. I actually was not going to post until I saw the repeat of that suggestion from a thread a few weeks ago that the government should be sending reminders to all passport holders regarding their expiration date.