Autumn break is approaching and many are preparing for a vacation. Applying for emergency passports is popular and every year there are articles about people who got their vacation ruined because of mistakes they made with their passports. A lot of people are not aware of passport regulations and that a lot more than the expiration date may invalidate your passport for your trip.
We have gathered six cases where the passport may be declared invalid even if the expiration date has not passed – and a trick to avoid these problems.
1. Damages in the passport
This is probably the most obvious, but you may be denied entrance to a country if your passport has damages. This doesn’t have to be major issues, but loose pages, a ripped paper and similar could be enough in more strict countries to declare your passport invalid.
2. Stamps from certain countries
If you travel to some Arab countries with a stamp from Israel in your passport, that could become a showstopper. Are you planning to travel between Kosovo and Serbia then it is also important to make sure your stamps are in the right order. USA have also introduced restrictions on which countries you may have visited before, both countries that put you on the no-entrance list and the let’s-talk-for-three-hours list. Collecting stamps in the passport is fun, but for the purpose of easing immigration, a blank passport is a good passport.
3. The “real” expiration date
Many countries, especially African and Asian, requires your passport to be valid for 3 or 6 months after your planned departure from their country. To be on the safe side we like to think of the passport as expired 6 months prior to expiration date, regardless of the country we are visiting.
4. Unofficial stamps
In the same way that stamps from the “wrong” countries may cause issues an unofficial stamp has the same effect. A passport is an official government document and if it is altered by unauthorised staff (read: tourist stamp) it has technically been “tampered with” and considered invalid. While the probability of this is very low it could in theory put a full stop to your vacation. We learned about this ourselves at the airport in Amsterdam when our passports were checked and we were nearly returned to South America. Luckily we met a nice lady that let us go with a warning,
5. Unknown place of birth
Some countries require the place birth to be named, not just the country of birth. This is not a problem for most people, but adopted children and immigrants may struggle if the documents from their birth country are not recognised by their current country and will in most places lead to “unknown place of birth” written in their passport.
6. Too few blank pages
Some countries (especially African) requires at least two completely blank pages in the passport for visas. Just like a passport may expire before the expiration date it may also become filled in before it is completely full.
Tips to less passport issues
How can you avoid these issues? Have more than one passport! Believe it or not, but having more than one passport is completely legal, at least in some countries.
In Norway, a second passport is known as a duplicate passport or working passport. It allows you to use one passport to apply for visas (that often requires you to send the passport to the embassy) while travelling with a second one. If you need to replace your passport it also enables you to continue travelling with your “backup” passport. It has been especially useful for us to keep one passport safe at home with valuable visas and long distance flights registered for future trips while making short trips with a second passport without the fear of damaging it.
The following is valid for Norwegian passports, but similar arrangements may exist in other countries as well: A duplicate passport looks just like a normal passport, but with a unique passport number and different expiration date (only valid for 2 years). You need a justification for acquiring one and if it is needed for work the process is quite straight forward. Write down the reason why it is needed and have your company approve and sign it. If it is for personal travel the police tend to treat the application a bit more strict, but still possible. When we travelled around the world we applied for duplicate passports because of all the visas and flights we had registered a year in advance and the risk of damages in the meantime. This was approved without any problems.
Just remember to travel with one passport at the time! Although it is completely legal to have multiple passports most immigration offices will probably check you extremely thoroughly if you say that you have multiple passports. Countries not aware of the system may even think the passports are fake and deny entrance to their country.
Have you ever had issues with passports while travelling?
