INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL - PASSPORT EXPIRING SOON?

TRAVEL HANG UPS:

Passports Close to Expiration

Some countries require your passport to be valid for 3 to 6 months after your travel dates. For instance, Italy requires passports to be valid for at least three months after a visitor's travel dates. And beware, though it's not always enforced, this restriction is more common than you might suspect.

The best way to avoid this issue is to renew your passport about nine months before it expires. That will give you time to get a new one before entering that pesky three- to six-month window. To find out whether the countries you're visiting have restrictions on soon-to-expire passports, check the State Department "Country Specific Information" page.