Just an FYI of a requirement for entering the Schengen Zone, and likely many other foreign destinations (and thanks to Bruce Lellman for steering me to this discovery, which might have tripped us up otherwise).

According to the US State Department, overseas travelers should plan on having six months of eligibility remaining on their passports before traveling overseas.  The advisory states that US citizens planning on entering the Schengen Zone must have “a U.S. passport (with applicable visas, if needed), valid for at least 90 days beyond your intended date of departure from the Schengen area.”

If true, this would have tripped us up on our planned tour of Spain this fall.  Our passports expire at the end of December, but I was assuming we’d be fine since we’ll be returning to the US in mid-December.  Not so, apparently.

Yep - sadly applies to UK passport holders visiting Schengen countries now as well - I suspect it affects all holders from "3rd countries".  

Huh, another restriction I wasn't aware of - your passport must also not have been issued more than 10 years before the time of entry. This might seem like a real edge-case but my previous passport was valid for 11 years. 

(That was my previous EU passport - the way things are going, there's some hope it won't be my last!)

Until fairly recently, Canadians could only get 5-year passports. I’m heading upstairs to check mine now. 

Yeah, 11 years was pretty unusual. I think I only got such a long duration because I went and got my passport renewed in person. Was a strange experience actually, they asked me some quite subtle casual questions about local knowledge of where I was living - then basically OKed it and printed it that afternoon!

I got a 10-year passport in 2017 so I'm set for a while.  I hope there aren't any backlogs when I need to renew.

If it's any consolation, the same rule applies to EU citizens going to the USA.