How to check if your passport is valid for a trip

  1. Pick the destination. Choose the country you are entering. For a multi-country trip, check each country separately — the strictest one decides.
  2. Enter your dates. Arrival and departure dates, and the expiry date printed in the passport. Schengen destinations also ask for the issue date.
  3. Read the verdict. You get the exact date the passport must be valid until, the margin in days, and a plain yes or no. Under 30 days of margin is flagged.
  4. Confirm and act. Follow the official link for the destination to confirm, and if you are short, renew before you book — see the passport renewal guide linked in the result.

What it does

  • 70 destinations with their actual rule: six months on arrival, three months after departure, or the stay
  • Schengen’s second condition — issued within the last ten years — checked too
  • Counts calendar months the way border rules are written, not a flat 180 days
  • Flags a margin under 30 days as cutting it close
  • Links every destination to its official entry-requirements page
  • Runs in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere

The problem this solves

"Is my passport valid?" has a different answer at every border. The passport in your hand may show a year of validity left and still be refused — because the country you are flying to counts from the day you leave, not the day you arrive, or wants six months of buffer, or cares how old the passport is. Airlines enforce these rules at check-in, so the failure happens in the departure hall, not at the destination.

This calculator encodes the rule shape for each destination, computes the exact date your passport must be valid until for your trip, and compares it with the date printed in the passport. It links every destination to an official entry-requirements page so you can confirm before you rely on it.

The four shapes the six-month rule takes

RuleWhat it meansTypical destinations
Six months beyond arrivalCounted from the day you landThailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, China, India, UAE, Egypt, Kenya, Peru
Six months beyond departureCounted from the day you leaveRussia (beyond the visa)
Three months beyond departure, issued within 10 yearsThe Schengen ruleAll 29 Schengen countries; New Zealand uses the three-month part
Valid for the stayOnly has to outlast the tripUnited Kingdom, Ireland, United States (ESTA), Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil

Two outliers: Türkiye asks for 150 days beyond arrival, and Hong Kong for one month beyond the stay. South Africa wants 30 days beyond departure — but turns more people away for missing blank pages than for the date.

The Schengen rule, precisely

For visa-free visitors to the Schengen area, a passport must have been issued within the previous ten years on the day you enter, and must stay valid for at least three months after the day you intend to leave. The second part is easy to check. The first catches people whose passport was renewed early and given extra months: a passport issued more than ten years ago can be refused even with time left on it. The calculator asks for the issue date when you pick a Schengen destination and checks both.

Why the calculator counts calendar months

Border rules say "six months", not "183 days", so the tool adds calendar months and clamps to the end of a shorter month: arrive on 31 August and six months later is 28 February. Where a rule is written in days (Türkiye's 150, South Africa's 30) it counts days. A margin under 30 days is flagged as cutting it close, because a delayed flight or an extra night changes the arithmetic.

What it does not know

Rules here are for ordinary visa-free or visa-on-arrival visitors. Your nationality can change them: some passports need a visa where others do not, and a visa carries its own validity conditions. Transit rules, blank-page requirements, and electronic authorizations (ESTA, eTA, ETA, NZeTA, K-ETA) are mentioned in the notes but not computed. Governments change entry rules with little notice. Treat the verdict as a well-informed first pass and the linked official page as the final word.

The dates you enter stay in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or stored — reload the page and it forgets. If you want to stop doing this by hand, Paperlock reads the expiry date from a photo of the passport and reminds you 30 and 7 days before it matters.