hi! my passport expires early 2009 but i'm thinking of renewing now as many countries wont accept a passport with less than six months and we're getting close to that. since i've been to many countries i have some unusual visas and stamps in the passport book. I understand that if i send it in, the pages will be stamped with holes possibly injuring the significance of some stamps or visas. on the US govt website i see that it is possible to simply say its been lost and the fee for a renewal passport is the same. Is it better to send in and accept the holes or simply claim it's been lost? thanks for your opinion....

optionstrader, I'm going to move this post over to Travelbuzz, since it's a bit off topic for Communitybuzz!

Jenbel
Co-moderator, Communitybuzz!

Mine expires in April 2009. I've never heard that some countries won't accept it with less than 6 months remaining. Do you know which? We're traveling internationally in December, and I figured I'd have the passport renewed after that trip. Do I really need to have it done now?

Only the front cover is punched with two holes. Your inner pages and visas will be intact, and the visas will be valid until they expire. No worries.

The Philippines for one, and many other countries in Asia.

Pretty much all countries require the passport to be valid for 6 months from your first entry, or for the length of your visa, whichever is longer.

I suggested contacting the embassies of the countries you are trying to visit, I did this with Fiji and they simply wrote a letter saying I could travel with that passport (since it was still valid for about a month after the date on my return ticket).

I did the same thing as you are suggesting, saying my passport was "lost". I got a warning from the NZ authorities saying that if I "continue to lose my passport, then its renewal may be restricted." Don't really know how that's possible, since it's in our Bill of Rights that we have the right to a passport, but hey.

I'm not sure about the US - but over here they cut the top right hand corner off the passport (about half an inch off). Sometimes they cut the whole thing, and sometimes just the front cover. Annoying when they cut the whole thing, though.

This is an absolute must for many countries (I think even for foreign visitors to the US) and pretty much all Asian countries. Don't risk it, get your passport renewed.

I've often thought that with passport renewal fees being so high in most countries this is a bit of a ripoff as your passport is really only useful for 9 and a half years or in the case of Canada only 4 and a half years.

That's correct, with a noteable exception being visitors from the UK. There's some bilateral agreement that means a UK passport is automatically renewed for a further 6 months if it expires soon after you're due to depart the US, from memory. Perhaps someone else can expand on this.

Yep, same here. They just slashed the NZ passport validility from 10 years to 5 years (or 9.5 to 4.5), and doubled the price. Certainly seems like a ripoff to me!

It usually says in each country on this page

http://travel.state.gov/travel/travel_1744.html

if there is a six month requirement. For the Phillipines, for example, it states:

U.S. citizens may enter the Philippines without a visa upon presentation of their U.S. passport, valid for at least six months after the date of entry into the Philippines, and a return ticket to the United States or an onward ticket to another country.

That page also lists travel warnings, worth reading no matter where you are going.

But beware, even if your destination country doesn't require the passport to be valid for six months, some airlines will nevertheless deny boarding if the passport has a shorter validity. In some cases, this is done because the check-in staff and supervisors don't know the rules, and in other cases it is airline policy (presumably arrived at because the check-in staff and supervisors don't know the rules, and the airline doesn't want the complication and bother of having to inform them of the rules). In the latter case there's nothing much that you can do at check-in; in the former case you can try to argue the toss, but the last laugh's on you if you can't board your flight, really.

So you'd need to check with the airline too and preferably get something in writing from them.

In the UK, when you renew a passport they will add up to 9 months remaining validity from your old passport to your new passport so you don't loose out if you renew early.

I'm not sure if other countries do this.

This is currently causing problems on the new American ESTA site though, as the site won't accept that your passport could be longer than 10 years validity.

I would strongly advise against declaring your passport lost. Traveling on a replacement passport and subsequent renewals, more times that not you will have additional scrutiny and interviews on your return to the US. I speak from personal experience.