How long must your passport be valid? The six-month rule

There is no single six-month rule. Each country sets its own, and they differ more than most people expect.

The Schengen area wants three months beyond the day you leave, and a passport issued in the last ten years. The United Kingdom wants a passport valid for the whole of your stay. The United States asks for six months, then exempts a long list of countries, Nigeria among them. Canada will not let your stay run past the date your passport expires. Many other countries, from Kenya to Thailand, do ask for six months from the day you arrive.

Everything below was read on the official page on 30 September 2026. Every figure links to where it came from.

The short version

Destination	How long the passport must be valid	Other conditions
Schengen area	At least 3 months after you leave	Issued within the previous 10 years; 2 blank pages for a visa
United Kingdom	The whole of your stay	—
United States	6 months beyond your stay, unless your country is on the exemption list	Nigeria is on the list
Canada	Your stay cannot go beyond the passport’s expiry date	—

Schengen: three months, and the 10-year trap

The rule is in the Schengen Borders Code. Article 6(1)(a) says your travel document’s validity “shall extend at least three months after the intended date of departure”, and that it “shall have been issued within the previous 10 years”. That is from the consolidated text on EUR-Lex.

If you need a visa, the EU Visa Code adds one more condition. Article 12 says the passport must “contain at least two blank pages”, on top of the same three-month and ten-year rules (Regulation 810/2009). The European Commission’s own guide to applying adds that on a multiple-entry visa, the three months count from your departure from the last country you visit.

The three-month rule is easy to check. The ten-year rule is the one that catches people.

Some passports have been extended, or were issued with more than ten years of validity. The expiry date may be comfortably in the future, but if the issue date is more than ten years ago on the day you travel, the passport does not meet the condition. Look at the issue date, not just the expiry date.

Both rules apply to all 29 Schengen states. See the Schengen visa guide for the rest of the process.

United Kingdom: valid for the whole stay

The UK is simpler. The gov.uk page for the Standard Visitor visa says you “must have a passport or travel document that is valid for the whole of your stay in the UK.” No extra margin is stated on that page. Details for each passport are on our United Kingdom page.

United States: six months, with a long list of exceptions

The US starts from six months. The US Customs and Border Protection bulletin of 18 December 2025 says visitors “are required to be in possession of passports that are valid for six months beyond the period of their intended stay”. It then lists countries whose citizens are exempt and “need only have a passport valid for their intended period of stay.”

This is often called the Six-Month Club. It works because those countries have agreed that their passports stay valid for return for six months after the printed expiry date. The State Department’s own manual, 9 FAM 403.9-3(B)(2), carries the same list.

Nigeria is on it. So are Côte d’Ivoire, India, South Africa, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, Canada and most of the EU. Ghana and Kenya are not. Read the full list on the CBP bulletin; it is one page.

Two cautions from the same manual. First, you will not be admitted for a period that runs past the date printed in your passport, whatever the list says. Second, being on the list changes the passport rule only. It does not change whether you need a visa. See our United States page.

Canada: your stay stops when your passport does

Canada’s passport page does not set a six-month margin. It says: “We can’t issue you a work permit, study permit or visitor record that is valid past the expiry date of your passport.”

The same applies to the visa itself. The visitor visa page says a visa “may be valid for up to a maximum of 10 years, or until the expiry of either your passport or biometrics, whichever comes first.” Apply with a passport close to expiry and you may get a visa that ends with it. More on our Canada page.

Countries that do ask for six months

These are taken from the UK Foreign Office’s entry requirements pages, which are written for British passport holders. They are an official source, and each was read on 30 September 2026, but a country can set a different rule for your nationality. Check that country’s own immigration site, or its page on this site, before you book.

Country	Validity on arrival	Blank pages
United Arab Emirates	6 months	Not stated
Kenya	6 months	2
Ghana	6 months	Not stated
India	6 months	2
Indonesia	6 months	2
China	6 months	2
Singapore	6 months	Not stated
Egypt	6 months	1
Tanzania	6 months	1
Thailand	6 months	1
Brazil	6 months	Not stated
Nigeria	6 months	Not stated

Others ask for less:

Country	Validity	Blank pages
Türkiye	150 days from arrival	1
Morocco	3 months from arrival	Not stated
South Africa	30 days after you leave	2
Japan	The length of your stay	1, for the visa stamp

Note the difference in wording. Most count from the day you arrive. South Africa and the Schengen area count from the day you leave. On a long trip, that gap matters.

Blank pages

Blank pages are a separate condition, and easy to forget on a well-used passport. A Schengen visa sticker needs two. Kenya, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa ask for two; Egypt, Tanzania, Thailand and Türkiye ask for one, according to the Foreign Office pages above.

“Blank” means blank. A page with an old stamp in the corner is not a free page. If you are close, renew before you apply, not after.

Damaged passports

A damaged passport can be refused even if it is in date. The Foreign Office’s Morocco page says plainly: “The Moroccan authorities have denied entry to some travellers with damaged passports.” Water damage, a loose data page, torn pages or a chip that no longer reads are all reasons to renew before you travel. The same pages also warn that you will be denied entry if you try to use a passport that has been reported lost or stolen.

The airline checks before the border does

In practice, the first person to apply these rules is at the check-in desk. Every Foreign Office entry page tells travellers to “check with your travel provider” that their documents meet requirements. The US six-month list above is itself a bulletin from CBP’s Carrier Liaison Program, written for airlines. The airline applies the destination’s rule, not yours.

That means you can be turned away at your home airport over a rule you never heard of. The fix is to check the rule for your destination, and for any country you transit through, before you book.

Renewing your passport

Renew through your own government’s passport service, and nowhere else. An agent cannot shorten the queue.

For Nigerian passports, the Nigeria Immigration Service portal is passport.immigration.gov.ng. The NIS renewal steps are: choose “Apply for Renewal/Reissue”, verify your NIN, choose a processing centre and a 32-page or 64-page booklet, upload a photo, pay, and book a biometrics appointment at the office you chose.

The fees, from an NIS announcement of 28 August 2025 that took effect on 1 September 2025:

Booklet	Applying in Nigeria	Applying abroad
32 pages, 5-year validity	₦100,000	$150
64 pages, 10-year validity	₦200,000	$230

Confirm the amount on the portal when you pay. If it differs, the portal is right and this page is out of date. Pay only through the portal, never to a third party’s account.

If you travel often, the 64-page booklet gives you more room for the blank-page rules above. Whichever you choose, start early: a passport inside its last six months already fails many of the rules in this guide.

Checklist

• Find your destination’s rule on its own government site, or on its page here. Do not assume six months, and do not assume less.
• Check whether the rule counts from arrival or from departure.
• For Schengen, check the issue date as well as the expiry date. It must be within the last ten years.
• For the US, find your country on the CBP list. If it is there, you need validity for the stay; if not, six months beyond it.
• For Canada, remember your stay and your visa cannot outlast the passport.
• Count your blank pages. Two for a Schengen visa sticker.
• Check any country you transit through, not only the one you are visiting.
• If the passport is damaged, renew it. Do not test it at a border.
• Renew only through your government’s official service. For Nigeria, that is passport.immigration.gov.ng.