Hello, it's Wednesday the 15th of September and thanks for joining me Simon Calder for the latest on travel and destinations from the Green List and the travel desk of the Independent.

Today I'm at Waterloo Station in central London previously the busiest. Transport terminal in Europe, not today. But I'm going to bring you news on

passport validity. The travel giants agree with me at last. Qantas vows to start flying from the UK

to Australia by Christmas, probably, and Switzerland's national airline

starts selling its sandwiches at cut prices. Of course, this podcast is completely free, as is my

weekly travel email. Do sign up at independent.com..uk forward slash newsletters.

Since the 1st of January 2021, it has been tough being a British traveller in Europe,

all sorts of reasons why Brexit has been very, very unfortunate for the traveller. But one particular aspect is passport validity.

Remember that until the UK left the EU, your passport was valid in any European Union country

up to and including the day of expiring. Well that's no longer the case. There are two

European Union rules that apply. First of all, your passport must be valid for three

months beyond the day you intend to depart from the European Union. And that would normally be because you've got

a train, a boat or a flight booking to take you back to Britain or indeed somewhere else

outside the EU. The other condition is that your passport should not have been issued

more than 10 years ago. Now, for a lot of British people

who have passports that were issued before September 2018, that's actually a difficult one,

because it was traditional and very welcome for any unspent credit on your existing passport

to be included, added to the 10 years

when you renewed your passport. A very civilised idea and absolutely fine while we were

part of the European Union. Once you leave, as part of the rules that the UK helped to draft

when we were members of the EU,

passports can be valid for no more than 10 years.

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