British citizens must have a full British passport to visit the countries featured on our website, but no visas are required for any country other than
India and Nepal.
You should ensure that your passport has at least 6 months’ validity beyond the date of your return to the UK. For European travel, if you hold a British passport you must also check that it will be less than 10 years old when you travel (even if it has 6 months or more left – extra months that may have been added if you renewed your current passport before the previous one expired will not count towards the 6 months needed). The UK government website has a useful tool to check if your passport has sufficient validity:
www.gov.uk/check-a-passport-for-travel-to-europe. Entry requirements do change and you must check the up-to-date position in good time before departure.
Some airlines may require passengers to have two blank facing pages in order to travel; you should check this directly with the airline if you are concerned.
Renewal of a British passport currently takes about 3 weeks for online applications, but longer for postal applications (see the UK government website,
www.gov.uk/browse/abroad/passports). You should allow considerably longer if any members of your party are applying for their first adult passport (it normally takes 6 weeks but, due to Covid, applications are currently taking longer to process). Babies and children must have their own passport, and cannot be included on a parent’s passport. Children’s passports are valid for 5 years.
If any member of your party is not a British citizen or holds a non-British passport, you must check passport and visa requirements with the Embassy or Consulate of the country(ies) to or through which you are intending to travel. Note that many European countries now require that passports issued by non-EEA (European Economic Area) countries must be valid for 3 months beyond the period of intended stay.