I've just booked air travel for Japan, with return to Canada on 28 February 2009. In January-February 2009 we'll be travelling from Japan to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. My electronic ticket has a notation that reads: "SOME COUNTRIES REQUIRE PASSPORTS TO BE VALID FOR 6 MONTHS OR LONGER BEYOND YOUR TRAVEL DATES." My passport expires 2 June 2009. Do I need to renew it now to avoid problems, or is this a phantom warning that does not apply? I'm presuming that once my visa is issued for Japan, no problems will arise there, so my concern is mostly with the other Asian countries.

Renew it before you travel. Most airlines will not even check you in if the validity of your passport is less than 6 month.

I know for sure that Thailand requires that your passport be valid for at least six months after your date of entry. You need to renew it, before applying for any visas.

renew it now

Yes, of course, I see now I need to renew it. (My wife can't figure out why I'd listen to you guys and not to her!) And I'm not sure why my first reaction was to find a way around it--except some stupid idea of getting my money's worth out of the present one before expiry.
Since posting this inquiry I checked the IATA database and it confirms that for Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand you do need six months remaining on the passport for entry.

My husband renewed his passport two weeks ago. He sent it out on Monday and the new passport was back on Saturday! After the renewal delay problems of a year ago....this timing was unexpected and amazing!!!!

I saw a guy get kicked out of Bali for having an almost expired passport. Apparently he wasn't a fodorite.

Well, now I'm wondering why this requirement anyway--If you get a tourist visa good for 30 days, why should anyone care that you have six months left before your passport expires?
And, thanks to your urging--and my wife's--I applied today to renew my passport. My MP's office estimates 2-3 weeks.

It is irritating, especially since it means you lose 6 months of use on an expensive passport.

I think the reasoning behind it is that they don['t want you to have some emergency where you end up in their country without a valid passport to get home.

I have had to renew my passport twice because of this dumb 6-month expiration thing. I don't think it is right or fair that we can't get the full 10 years out of it. Maybe they should issue a passport for more that 10 years, or less, or at least have some agreement with other countries.

Pity the poor Thais. They have to pay about the same as the US for passports, but theirs are only good for 5 years - and if they fill it up (they're very thin) they have to get a new passport - no added pages!

Cool down lolo12. The $ equivalent of the 6 months non usable period comes to only $3.75($75 for a 10 years US passport divided by 10 then by 2). US citizens have a big advantage in that they don't have to preapply for visas to a lot of countries and thus saving a lot of money in the process. Example for a Thai to apply for a US visa will cost $100 for a UK visa will cost $130 etc....

Just think of it as really being a nine-and-a-half year passport.

Or maybe they should issue it for 10.5 years and charge you $78.75.

Hanuman, I agree that the costs of early renewal aren't astronomical for an international traveller. In my case, I'll probably have a new passport issued by 2 August 2008, instead of 2 June 2009 when it would have expired--ten months before I'd planned to. (I'm away 11 Sep 08-28 Feb 09.)
A Canadian passport costs $87 for five years, plus, say, $15 for the photos. The necessity of early renewal loses me 1/6 of the value of the passport and photos, or $17. Not a big deal, and calculating it like this makes me realize it's not. But I guess it galls because it's something you pay your government for that you don't get full value from--and that's reminiscent of too many other similar instances. On the other hand, most of us on Fodor's are lucky to be able to travel the world as we do. How wonderful.

Willjame,

This might be of interest to you - I take my own passport photo and print them out on my printer at home. I estimate that it cost less than $1 for a 2 x 2" passport photo.

Oh, I sure toyed with the idea of a DIY photo. But then I wondered whether I could fulfil at home the twenty or so specifications for the photo (50mm x 70mm photo, 31-36mm top of the head to chin, no shadows, no smile, no frown, no tipped head, no open mouth, etc. etc.)
But the clincher was when I read the Canadian regulation that states the photo has to be done by a commercial photographer with name or studio imprinted on the back of one of the two photos submitted along with the date it was taken. So, no dice: ker-chunk, $17.00!

Wow that's very strict!

On the subject of affordable passport photos, this may be of help to people living in the New England area...

We used to go to a local photographer who charged $18 for every two photos. That added up when preparing for pp renewals and multiple visa applications for multiple family members.

This past year, the CVS chain began offering pp photos at a very competitive price -- 6 photos for $7.99. Not as cheap as Hanuman can do it but quick and hassle-free.

What? Passport and visa photos of the same size and all taken at the same time? You might as well hear the rest of my story.
In May we had to apply for the Certificate of Eligibility for our visas to be in Japan. That meant three photos 3 cm x 4 cm in size. At the same time, knowing that we'd need photos for our Alien Registration Cards, we had two more done, of the specified size of 45 mm x 35 cm. Today's two photos for the Canadian passport were, as mentioned earlier, 70 mm x 50 mm. So, there you have it: a total of seven photos with three different size requirements. Can you just get a bunch done in the biggest size and cut some of them down? Of course not--they all have to be "full face," with face size of specified dimensions.

Just part of the cost of travelling. Feel luckly as the majority of Canadians are luckly to get as far as the southern US or Cuba for their holidays.