By James Salmon Transport Editor For The Daily Mail
Published: 22:19 GMT, 7 March 2019 | Updated: 23:42 GMT, 7 March 2019
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The Passport Office website crashed yesterday after a warning that millions of holidaymakers could be barred from EU countries by a No Deal Brexit unless they beat today’s renewal deadline.
A surge in applications was triggered by consumer group Which? after it said 3.5million Britons with less than six months left on passports could be stopped from entering multiple European countries this summer – including France, Spain and Italy.
However, those who acted on the advice found the Government website was not working, and were presented with the message: ‘This service is not available. If you don’t want to wait you can apply a different way.’
Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: ‘After months of patchy and confusing information about passports from the Government, this late rush in the weeks before Brexit was entirely foreseeable – which makes it even more shocking that people have been let down by an IT glitch.’
The Passport Office website crashed yesterday after a warning that millions of holidaymakers could be barred from EU countries by a No Deal Brexit unless they beat today’s renewal deadline
The rules for travel to most countries in Europe change if the UK leaves the EU with no deal.
After 29 March 2019:
You should have at least 6 months left on your passport from your date of arrival. This applies to adult and child passports.If you renewed a passport before it expired, up to nine extra months may have been added to your new passport's expiry date. Any extra months on your passport over 10 years may not count towards the 6 months that should be remaining for travel to most countries in Europe.The consumer watchdog announced that around 3.5million UK passports would not be accepted for travel to the Schengen area – 26 European countries which have ended passport control at
