Hello,
My family is taking a trip to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic the first 3 weeks of September. We are entering and exiting the region via Frankfurt. We leave in 9 days. Today I was looking through out travel documents to make sure everything is in order and noticed that my passport expires on February 15th, 2016 -- a little less than 6 months from now. In the back of my head I remembered hearing that some countries have stringent requirements that your passport must not be within 6 months of its expiration. So I did some research, and am reading conflicting things.
The normal rule for most countries is that they require you to have
three months from your actual travel date before your passport
expires. Three months is generally the longest amount of time you can
stay in a foreign country without any sort of visa, but some
countries—especially in the Schengen region of Europe—are expanding
that requirement to six months.
PASSPORT VALIDITY: Must be valid for at least three months beyond your
planned date of departure from the Schengen area and contain at least
two blank pages
Some Schengen countries assume all travelers will stay the full three
months allowed for visa-free visitors, meaning a visitor may not be
admitted unless his/her passport is valid for at least six months,
regardless of the duration of the stay.
US citizens in possession of a valid US passport (on the planned date
of departure from Germany, your passport should have at least another
three months validity) do not need a visa for airport transit, tourist
or business trips (for stays up to 90 days).
So some sites say 3 months/90 days is sufficient and others say that Schengen countries are changing to 6 months. I'm hoping its the former, obviously. The fact that the US State department page on Germany says 90 days give me hope but then again the state department press release I linked to above says sometimes Schengen countries require 6 months.
If I had discovered this sooner, I'd get my passport renewed, but with only 9 days to go (and only 5 business days) that doesn't seem feasible. Is there anything I can do to make sure I don't run into trouble on this trip?
Thanks!
Myron