A passport says, “expires on May 13 2011”. Is the passport valid on May 13 2011, or is its last day of validity May 12?
I would argue that it is still valid on May 13, 2011, because that day is not yet in the past. Once that day is in the past, then it has expired.
Pragmatically, it’s whatever the government says it is, even if the government in question isn’t the issuing government.
KneadToKnow has it: the passport will still get you back into your home country at 11:59:59 PM on May 13, 2011. However, as the MSNBC article points out, many other countries will not let you into their country (and consequently, airlines will not let you take one of their flights out of your home country) unless your passport will be valid for X more months: they would really like to avoid having your passport expire while you’re there, trapping you in their country for who-knows-how-long while you get a new one issued.
Okay, thanks for the input so far.
I’m asking because the people in charge of issuing driver licenses around here wouldn’t accept a passport that expires today. It only matters because it’s going to take some time and money for me to scare up a birth certificate, so I was really hoping this wouldn’t be an issue.
But it was.
I also would argue it’s valid on the thirteenth as well:
It “expires on” the 13th. This can easily be construed to mean that, during the 13th, it has not yet finished expiring. It will not have expired til the 13th is over.
In other contexts, things are valid throughout the expiration period. For example, a credit card that expires “March 2012” will be valid throughout March 2012.
I was hoping for some citation from an official passport-related government cite as to how the federal government interprets expiration dates, so I could go back to the BMV for a hail mary attempt at persuasion (fat chance of course but doesn’t hurt to try)… but it looks like I’m going to have to wait a few weeks and spend some bucks in order to get the birth certificate. 
What is the logic for an expired passport (or driver’s licence) being invalid as a form of ID? Surely it is still a government-issued document with your name and photograph; if the photograph is recognizably you and your signature matches, is there a reason it wouldn’t be valid other than “rules are rules”?
One reason for an expiration date would be that stolen or revoked documents could be used indefinitely, i.e. lists of blacklisted serial numbers could never be purged, and new anti-counterfeiting features could never become mandatory.
From the Code of Federal Regulations:
So, if you got a passport that was issued on May 14, 2001, its validity begins at 12am on 5/14/01.
Add ten years to that date and time, and one will find that the passport is valid until 11:59:59pm on 5/13/11.
Not sure this link will work to the CFR: http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=daa51653483a586de6ad13c147ee2f71;rgn=div5;view=text;node=22%3A1.0.1.6.33;idno=22;cc=ecfr#22:1.0.1.6.33.1.1.3
That cinches it.
Unfortunately, it’s too late–the BMV is closed.
Oh well.
I’m sure that it’s written into their own regulations that they have discretion to accept or not accept these things anyway.
I have only just realized that it must be Bureau of Motor Vehicles where you live.
I’m used to people referring to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Yeah, “BMV” always makes me think “Bowel MoVement.”
(I was raised in DMV-land like you…)
My US passport expires Oct. 2011, without a date specified, so I suppose 9/30/11 is the last day of use possible.
I wonder why yours ends on some random day in the middle of the month, instead of the end/start of a month?
The date is 10 years to the day past the date the passport was created.
(I’m surprised yours doesn’t have a date–the language of the regulation cited earlier states that there’s an exact date past which the thing is expired, not just a month.)
I just looked at my passport, and I am 100% wrong on this.
It expires on 10/5/2011, and actually states that the last day of use possible is 10/4/2011.
I don’t know what I was thinking, but I swear that I just recently noted to myself that something is up in Oct., and I was absolutely certain that it was my passport, which I just had out a couple of months back…
Sorry.
Are you sure? The one I’ve been talking about says:
Which, as I’ve been arguing, implies that you can use the thing through the expiration date of May 13th, not just until that date.