Last Updated on November 6, 2026
If you’re planning months in France on a British passport, your passport has to pass two checks at the Schengen border. It must have been issued less than 10 years before the day you enter, and it must be valid for at least three months after the day you plan to leave. Fail either one and an airline can refuse to let you board, long before you reach passport control in Paris.
On an older UK passport, the printed expiry date won’t tell you when the 10 years run out.
Check the issue date before the expiry date
Until September 2018, HM Passport Office added up to nine months of leftover validity from your old passport onto the new one. That’s why plenty of British passports show an expiry date 10 years and several months after the issue date. The EU ignores those extra months.
Say your passport was issued in June 2016 and expires in March 2027. Fly to Lyon in July 2026 and it fails the first test. By the printed date it still has eight months to run.
Passports issued since late 2018 run for exactly 10 years, so the two dates line up. The older ones are the ones that catch people at check-in.
Where the three months start
The buffer runs from your exit date. On a long stay, that pushes the validity you need well past the day you land.
Arrive in Bordeaux in January, plan to leave in August, and your passport has to be valid until at least November. Airlines check this against your return ticket. Border guards can also ask how long you’re staying.
Most nomads don’t know their exit date yet. Work from the latest date you might realistically leave, and check again if your plans stretch. A passport that passes both tests on arrival can fail the three-month one later, simply because you pushed your departure back by a couple of months.
The 90/180 rule on a long stay
Without a visa, UK citizens can spend 90 days in any 180-day period in the Schengen area. The 180 days roll. On any given day, look back 180 days and count every day you spent anywhere in Schengen, France included. A month in Paris followed by two months in Portugal uses all 90.
(Ireland is outside Schengen, so a few weeks in Dublin don’t count towards the 90. Some long-stayers plan their year around that.)
Now that the EU’s Entry/Exit System has replaced passport stamps, your entries and exits are recorded with your fingerprints and a photo. The system does the counting, so there’s no arguing about a smudged stamp.
To stay in France longer than 90 days, you need a long-stay visa before you go, such as the visitor visa that some remote workers use, or a residence permit if you already live there. The visitor visa doesn’t allow you to work for French clients. Read the conditions before you apply.
France-Visas runs the same two passport checks, measured against the end date of the visa. Check yours before you book an appointment.
Renewing your UK passport while you’re still in France
Most people spot the problem late, often when a visa application or an airline booking flags it. By then they’re in France, and HM Passport Office’s Fast Track appointments only happen inside the UK.
The standard overseas route is an online application on GOV.UK. Your old passport goes to the UK with it, so you wait in France without one until the new book comes back
If you can’t sit out that wait, you can renew a UK passport from France through a UK agent instead of flying home. ASAP Passports is one, and its courier collects the documents from you in France. HM Passport Office still issues the passport.
Your old passport comes back with the new one. Keep it. If your titre de séjour or Withdrawal Agreement card was issued against the old passport number, the old book links the two numbers until you update your file with the prefecture.
Need to fly within days? The British embassy can issue an emergency travel document. It covers one journey and it isn’t a passport, so you can’t use it to carry on traveling around Europe afterwards.
Write down your two Schengen dates
First, the last day you can enter Schengen. That’s the day before your passport turns 10.
Second, the last day you can leave, which is three months before the printed expiry.
Start the renewal when the earlier of those two dates is six months away. Six months leaves room for a visa appointment and any prefecture paperwork, and you won’t end up choosing between a booked trip and a passport in the post.
When the new passport arrives, update the number in your ANEF account and on any flights you’ve already booked. Airlines match your booking to the passport you check in with. A mismatch can cost you an hour at the desk.
If you’re applying for a long-stay visa as well, renew first. The visa goes into a passport, and it should be the one you’ll actually travel on.
