I had always though you needed 6 months left on a passport when traveling in Europe, but on the governement's passport site it mentiond the Schengen Agreement and it is now just three months for tourist travel.
I assume that I am understanding this correctly. Has anyone had any issues traveling with a passport with less than 6 months validity?
You might three passport date issues:
1 -- You can get back into the U. S. if you have a passport that is still current to the expiration date. (I fudged this once by returning late through stupidity and got in with a short quizz and a wallet-dump which took all of two minutes.)
2 -- Different places require varying amounts of time left on the passport for intitial entry into that country. If you're going to be outside the Schengen Zone on the trip, check what's required for those places.
3 -- If you do go outside the Zone and come back in, you will still need three months left on the passport from that date. The exception here is if you're only transiting the Zone (e.g.; changing planes in Paris while flying from Moscow to New York), the three-month business does not apply.
I've traveled into the EU with less than 3 months validity, and had no problems. Germany, Belgium, and Luxembourg have no validity rules....passport simply needs to be valid for the duration of your stay.
