Question on 6 month Passport validity

[zebra48]

Hi there,

we are travelling to the UK and have less than 6 months on son's passport.

He is UK citizen so will be able to travel 'home' however to return to Singapore can he enter as he is a PR and will have a re-entry permit.

If not will need to renew passport in UK

[malcontent]

Went through the exact same scenario in 2019 with my US citizen daughter who is a PR here. We had gone to the US with less than 6 months remaining, but I checked the Singapore side before we left and it was fine with a REP.

Upon attempting to return, the clowns at the airlines told us point blank - she is not going to fly today, her passport doesn’t have 6 months validity. I proceeded to explain that she is a PR and has a valid reentry permit in Singapore, showing them the very unofficial looking reentry permit that I printed at 2/3 size and stapled in her passport.

They didn’t care and insisted they were right, and kept asking when we are coming back to the US, to which I said, we are not - we live in Singapore. They brought in a few others (who were supposedly more experienced) to weigh in on this, and they also said resolutely that she has to have 6 months or she can’t fly.

So I told the person back, resolutely, you don’t understand, she is going to fly today, and you need to call someone who actually knows something — because the reentry permit allows her to reenter Singapore as long as it’s not expired. They agreed to make a call, but only after telling me it wouldn’t change anything… they finally got someone on the phone who verified that yes, Singapore does allow those with a valid reentry permit to enter Singapore regardless of when the passport expires.

In the end, they apologized but it didn’t even start to make up for the 20 minutes of needless stress they had caused me. The airline is the problem, so just be advised that they can make your life a living nightmare and deny you to board if they want to — even though you’re right and they’re wrong.