You might need to act to make sure your passport is valid
You might want to check yours now(Image: Anna Barclay, Getty Images)
People across the UK could be unknowingly carrying an invalid passport. Every Brit needs a valid passport for travelling abroad, and the document generally remains active for 10 years – or five years for children.
At present, a UK passport costs £102 via an online application, or £115.50 using a paper form, while a child’s passport is £66.50 when applying online, or £80 with the paper form. Once your passport arrives, there’s one important step you must take to make it valid – otherwise, it simply won’t be accepted.
In an alert posted on X, formerly Twitter, the Passport Office said: “Don’t forget to sign your passport! Most people over the age of 11 will need to sign their passport, and can’t use it until it’s signed. Unless your passport states ‘The holder is not required to sign’, you must use a black ballpoint pen [and] sign on the holder’s signature line.”
Additional guidance on Gov.uk reads: “A sign after receipt passport is not a valid travel document until the holder has signed it. HM Passport Office advises customers to sign their new passport as soon as they receive it.
“A passport may not be valid for travel if a customer has made a mistake when signing (for example, they have signed the wrong name). Passports that were issued with a digitally printed signature remain valid until their expiry date.”
Passport holders should avoid signing in pencil or coloured ink, using a signature that differs from their normal one, or including any additional details not ordinarily part of their signature, as doing so could make the passport invalid. It’s equally important never to rub out a pencil signature as this could cause damage to the page, and under no circumstances should you cross out, amend, or apply correction fluid to the signature.