# How old is your passport? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 11, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203 "2008-11-11T16:48:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cerowyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Cerowyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cerowyn)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/41 "2008-11-11T20:56:06Z")
My current Canadian passport expires in 2013, as Canada only offers five year passports. As it happens, I was a trip or two from it being full anyway, so that wasn’t too big a deal to have to replace it so soon. My British passport was issued in 1993; I’ve had the forms to renew it printed out for about a year now, I just never get around to it. The amusing thing about having only a valid Canadian passport is that when I travel to the UK, I get a stamp that avers: > [@](#): > > LEAVE TO ENTER FOR SIX MONTHS: EMPLOYMENT AND RECOURSE TO PUBLIC FUNDS PROHIBITED …from the land of my birth. [sub]:: sob ::[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/42 "2008-11-11T21:17:55Z")
About two and a half years old, I think. It still has seven and a half years to run. ---
**Author:** ![masterofnone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4bbf92/32.png) [@masterofnone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/masterofnone)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/43 "2008-11-11T21:24:17Z")
Never needed one. I did all of my traveling outside the US and Canada while I was in the Army. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/44 "2008-11-11T22:50:24Z")
Got my first passport in 1980. It wound up with two of the fan-fold extension pages added to it. Got my last passport in 1991. It has stamps for exactly one trip in it - my instructor certification trip to Korea. ---
**Author:** ![EpicNonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@EpicNonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpicNonsense)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/45 "2008-11-11T22:51:01Z")
> [@Asimovian](#): > > I feel like I’m finally part of the club! I’m 22. I got my first passport about a month ago. …and I thought **I** was late to the party… 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/46 "2008-11-11T22:59:59Z")
> [@EpicNonsense](#): > > I’m 22. I got my first passport about a month ago. > > …and I thought **I** was late to the party… 😛 Yeah…well…get off my lawn! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2008, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/47 "2008-11-11T23:06:39Z")
My current passport is 1 year old. It needs changing, as it is in my maiden name. However I’m not prepared to pay full price for another passport just because of that. I first visited another country at 6 weeks old, so I’ve had a passport my whole life. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/48 "2008-11-12T02:06:24Z")
I got my first passport at age 10. I’ve never been without one since, always renewing as needed. So I am never without a valid passport. Along with my personal international travels, my job occasionally sends me to Europe with only a`week or two notice. Ed ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/49 "2008-11-12T02:24:51Z")
I must have been about 15 - prior to that I travelled on my mother’s passport. I’ve lapsed a few years on one nationality and nearly got refused entry to the UK on the other one - it’s all ratty and the cover’s coming off. So really I’ve got no valid travel document right now which is NOT GOOD. I’m hoping this post will make me pull myself together… ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/50 "2008-11-12T03:30:08Z")
I had a passport as a small child. As an adult, I got one in 1985 and have had one since. I just had pages added to the current one. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/51 "2008-11-12T03:46:53Z")
About eighteen months. We had to get new passports to travel to Italy. It was hell. The passport office was backed up completely. I called senators and congressmen and begged to no avail. Mine came in the mail but my husband’s was very late. He literally had to go to a passport office in Philadelphia about a hundred miles from our house just to beg them to finally process it. He finally received it less than forty-eight hours before our flight. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/52 "2008-11-12T09:54:27Z")
I had my first passports issued when I was four weeks old - my mom and dad took me to the States to show me off to their parents (which was a good thing, as one of my grandfathers died suddenly a couple of months later). I carried those passports, baby pictures and all, until I was 10. I’ve renewed them constantly ever since. The last time I needed to renew my U.S. passport was this July, so I could fly to my grandmother’s funeral: it had expired a couple of weeks earlier, but I know a guy at the embassy and he had a temporary passport issued for me on the spot. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203/53 "2008-11-12T11:46:59Z")
Mine was issued in May. The one before, in 2004, has 3 years left to run but it was not biometric so I got a new one. Alessen’s post made me wonder, when I first travelled it was on my parents passport, I was three. I thought uptil 12 you could do that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-is-your-passport/472203.md?page=2)