Will I be okay to enter and exit a country if my passport was just issued?

by Amanda
(Marysville, Ohio, USA)

Question: I just received my passport in the mail a few days ago and the date on it says July 12th, 2010. I plan on going on a cruise to Italy, France, and Spain in November and read on the Travel.State.Gov website that these countries require at least 3 month validity for passports.

Will I be okay to enter and exit these countries even though my passport will only be in use for 3 months prior to the trip?

My boyfriend plans on going with me on the cruise and has not applied for his passport yet. If we expedite his application and receive him passport in the middle of August, will he also be okay to enter and exit Italy, France, and Spain even though his passport will only be in use for 2 months prior to the trip?

Answer: The 3 months validity rule means that your passport must have at least 3 months of validity remaining in order to be granted to enter into the countries you listed above. This means that the passport cannot be near its expiration date. You could travel to these countries the day your passport was issued if you wanted to.

If your boyfriend applies for a passport now, there is really no need to expedite the process. It only takes 4-6 weeks to get a passport.

Since you are planning a cruise, you may want to check out this resource.

Intelligent Cruiser