new passports or not?

[Juliemack]

From GOV.UK...

Your passport should be valid for the proposed duration of your stay. You don’t need any additional period of validity on your passport beyond this.

gov.uk/foreign-travel-adv...y-requirements

[Flimsey]

Originally Posted by Cabbie

After all these years I still cannot believe these so called professionals still offer this advice

-Steve

See more...

She did say we didn't have to but we go to the UAE regularly (as she knows) and they do require at least 6 months.

[7SeasSailor]

If I needed new estas and my passports were due to expire about the time that yours are, I would get new passports before the new estas.

[scruffycharlie]

I went with 4 weeks left on mine and it was absolutely fine.

[Guest]

Exactly why I haven't been in a Travel Agents in 23 years! They stick to this 6 month mantra re passports. They tell you Travellers Cheques are dead. They'd tell you the temperature is a constant 38 degrees in Antartica if they thought it got them a sale.

[gjdjud]

My daughters passport will expire in September 2017, we are going in May 2017 so I'm not going to renew it.

Can I ask though about the date it was issued? I'm sure I read passports issued before a certain date don't have a certain thing on them(not sure what it is, a chip maybe) Hers was issued in 2011. Is that ok?

[Guest]

Your passport should have this symbol on the front:

[Leggibone]

You don't NEED to do it, but as you need new estas:
Can you easily afford new passports and still have a good amount of spends ect (ie will you be cursing over the money you spent on the passports when I could be a couple of nice meals are something whilst your there, or would it not effect that)
Would you need/want the full 2 years for your estas (will you return to the us in your 2 year esta window)?
If both is yes you might as well as you will save your self some hassle with having to redo the estas again after new passports.

If the money you would spend on new passports could be spent else where before you NEED to renew them or you don't plan on returning to the Us in the next 2 years. then new estas are only $14 each and you might have needed them for your next trip anyway, so it's not worth the expense of passports at the moment.

[florida2000]

As other have said, you don't need to have 6 months left on passport.

However, I'd still renew before going. 2 years ago my DD had 4 months left on passport and any US border control the guy pulled us up and said she needed 6 months. I did say we didn't but never pushed it, I let him make a bit of an issue and make a call and appear to plead our case and then eventually let us through. So although I knew we would be fine, it was still a pain.

So, whilst I agree with all here I'd still renew. Why bother with the potential for these issues isf you can renew early and get the unused months added in anyway.

[papamouse]

My package holiday provider says

so you may find if you were travelling to Outer Mongolia - you would need 6 months on you pp - but with a little research from the official Government sources - you can see you DONT need it for the USA.

This is typical lazy advice from TAs - they don't know and don't look and don't want to say they don't know! They may heard that somewhere need 6 months so they say - 6 months.

But stuff like this the onus is totally on you to get it right. So do it right and check with .gov or .gov.uk when you book - but also when you travel as things change