"Official" websites have it that most EU countries allow entry for Canadians citizens (and citizens of other selected countries)who have** 3 full months** remaining on their passport following departure date. We will be travelling Italy, Malta and Switzerland from February into April, 2015, and have 4 full months remaining on our passports following departure from Geneva, with return flights to verify our departure. Our travel agent is telling us we may be refused entry into any one of those countries since we do not have 6 months from departure date to passport expiry date. Has anyone out there with a similar 3-month proviso on their passport expiry date experienced refusal for entry into those countries?
1
aribo
AFAIK you should have 3 months remaining at the time of departure, as stated in the official sources. Also, don't automatically assume that your travel agent has sufficient knowledge about entry requirements, I have seen plenty of examples here of travel agents providing incomplete or incorrect visa information - and then hide behind a disclaimer in their terms and conditions when their customer gets in trouble.
Have you asked your travel agent to provide written proof of what s/he told you? Or referred him/her to the official websites you mentioned?
2
aribo
P.S. technically speaking, your question is about the Schengen Area, which is not quite the same as the EU (Switzerland is not in the EU but has joined the Schengen Area a few years ago). If you feel like testing your travel agent's knowledge, perhaps you could ask him/her to explain the Schengen Area's entry requirements to you, and then verify them on this forum.
4
bthdth
Has anyone out there with a similar 3-month proviso on their passport expiry date experienced refusal for entry into those countries?
This is the wrong question to have asked. If nothing else, spot checks introduces a random element into the scenario. What's happened to one person in the past may not be especially relevant to what will happen to you in the future.
barkhouseduo, if you read your own post you will notice one obvious way in which you could have answered your own question. You begin with
most EU countries allow entry ..
and then you are more precise in saying
travelling Italy, Malta and Switzerland
for which the travel agent says
may be refused entry into any one of those countries [my emphasis]
The obvious solution is to check the requirements for the countries you are visiting. The previous poster has kindly provided a relevant link.
Added to specific immigration procedures, the 6 month limitation might be a condition of the carrier (the airline you are using). The above link also warns about this possibility, and the travel agent might have meant this as well, just as a heads-up precaution.
If you still want speculation: I'd figure that (i) with a return ticket in hand, (ii) being visa exempt anyway for the duration of your trip and (iii) (probably) not looking like a threat to national security, immigration will not make an issue of anything, and neither will the airline company.
I've never had issues because I always renew my passport once it gets down to 6 months remaining on its validity. You have time to get a new passport. If you figure on taking another trip in the next 5-10 years, you'll need a new passport anyway, so why not get a new one now? Ambiguities and potential difficulties resolved.
5
barkhouseduo
Thanks for both of your helpful replies. I had actually checked that website, as well as several others and referred my travel agent to them, as well as to the Schengen area vs. EU. It seemed clear to us that 3 months is acceptable in all 3 countries we are visiting. It was the travel agent who raised a cautionary note that while we are correct in interpreting the official stance, we could potentially be declined entrance if we encountered a (her words) cranky border official.
6
ben
we could potentially be declined entrance if we encountered a (her words) cranky border official.
Yes, but that would be true even if your passport has 9 years of validity left . A passport official may "potentially" deny you entry for a lot of reasons and does not even have to give them to you.
7
barkhouseduo
Thanks for your kind reply. Had already checked the travel.gc.ca website, on which we rely before travelling. As we have never encountered difficulties based on their information, we were really wondering if this agent knew what she was talking about.
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