Wow… very interesting. My current passport - issued prior to 2018 - is indeed valid for 10 years and one month. I’m already in the process of renewing it and don’t have any plans to travel back to UK / outside Schengen any time soon, but I can see how I could have easily fallen foul of this rule change too. I knew about the 6 month / 3 month rule, but not the “passport issued within 10 years” requirement.
Seems I’m as daft as ever… this ruling about Passports has been discussed here on SF for at least 2 years… and although I’ve read all those threads and posts… I’d still not registered in my brain that my own Passport is also “infected”…
Just as well we’re not planning on going far… and I had planned to renew this autumn… but I think I’ll do it a little earlier (just in case).
The change has been highlighted on numerous occasions since 2018, people that did not check after Brexit related changes for UK citizens rights are clearly a bit foolish or ill informed 
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There is a lot of confusion about the time carried over and added to the 10 years.
Some understand it as - the time carried over will be ignored by passport control, therefore as long as there are still more than 6 months left *excluding time carried over, the passport is valid.
Others understand it to mean that if a passport has more than 10 years then it is not valid and must be changed even if it still has more than 6 months left on it.
No you can’t use the photo booths for your British passport. for French driving licence and French ID certainly. The background will be grey and the code is only for french use. i had a right struggle until sweet Laurence in my tiny post office told me to go to my branch of Leclerc, where opposite the photo booth was a shop selling camera equipment etc, also had a photo booth. I went there and said what I needed, and the guy said ah, you need a white background and no code. mais oui, said I, and he changed the background panel, took the pic, and my IT chum did it all online for me and voilà, a Brit passport. Booth pic for french passport with grey background could do, but it was really good at Leclerc, and for my French passport the mairie in the local town did it with a Leclerc pic with code.
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I think the rule is 10 years or less validity on the day of travel - I’m sure you will check! The poor grauniad women had 10 years + 1 day remaining, I think f she’d travelled the next day, she’d have been fine…
I used my phone for the passport picture, I got Mme to take about 20 pictures, then uploaded what we thought was the best - what happened is as Kirsten writes, it generates a colour code, red, amber, green -green was EDIT - ‘likely to be accepted’. (which it was). I seem to recall it also had a percentage, mine I think 77% ish.
Also I found out UK people can have multiple passports at the same time - not just diplomats etc…
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This may help with passport validity and many countries have differing requirements.
Passport 6 Month Rule in 2023 - Passport Validity Requirements.
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I can’t have my photograph taken against a white wall, the camera can’t cope with my hair, they accepted a British background.
Edited to say that for ‘British’ read ‘beigeish’ !
The woman in the article had a passport valid for 10 years and one day from date of issue to date of expiry - one day carried over from her old passport plus 10 years. Of that she had 8 months left.
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A British background?
That’s not what I interpreted it as. I understood that her passport had 10 years plus 8 months when it was issued. When she wanted to travel, her return date would have been 10 years minus 3 months plus 1 day after the issue date on the passport. Just looking at the expiry date would make someone believe they had lots of time left, but taking the calculation from the issue date meant it would be invalid on her return date.
Hahaha beigeish is what I meant and my know-it-all tablet changed it.
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No, her passport had been issued 10 years and 1 day previously. If she had travelled a couple of days earlier she would have been fine.
The rules for EU entry are that the passport must have 3 months validity and have been issued within the last 10 years.
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Yes, that was my interpretation of things too… she (unknowingly) took her holiday one day too late 
Perfectly interchangeable in my opinion 
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I’m a bit confused too, never having really followed this topic. My passport was issued in Oct 2013, so expires in October of this year. I just came into the UK with it, no problems. I have my French passport with me, so I don’t anticipate a problem going back, would it be if I just had my GB one ?
Just wondering 
These rules apply to visitors. You are not a visitor - for you by virtue of double nationality but for others by virtue of their resident’s card - so it does not apply.
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This prompts a thought/question that has been at the back of my mind since this issue first surfaced in the media. l have a UK passport with 9 extra months added on above the standard 10 years, and have a carte de sejour. You’d think there should (in theory!) be no issue returning to France after the 10 years from date of issue point (ie up to 3 months before the passport’s actual expiry date). What concerns me is if I come across an immigration ‘jobsworth’ at Newhaven, who bars me from getting on the ferry back to Dieppe (assuming the passport has less than 3 months duration to its ‘10 years from issue’ date) despite the CdS . Has anybody seen anything “official” that I could show/quote, besides my carte de sejour, that would be jobsworth-proof?
I know I could renew ‘early’, but it seems rather a shame to ‘waste’ these precious extra months of validity…
I don’t know the official line but I do have recent experience.
I recently passed through Newhaven for an overnight crossing using a British passport that had 2 days to run before it hit the ‘10 years from date of issue’ limit.
They let me board, but said that if I’d been on the next evening’s crossing I would have been refused as my passport would have exceeded the validity date by 1 day on arrival in France.
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Passport validity
If you are planning to travel to an EU country (except Ireland), or Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino or Vatican City, you must follow the Schengen area passport requirements.
Your passport must be:
- Issued less than 10 years before the date you enter the country (check the ‘date of issue’)
- valid for at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave (check the ‘expiry date’)
You must check your passport meets these requirements before you travel. If your passport was issued before 1 October 2018, extra months may have been added to its expiry date.
Contact the embassy of the country you are visiting if you think that your passport does not meet both these requirements. Renew your passport if you need to.
Source :- Entry requirements - France travel advice - GOV.UK
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