Norway wrongly deports British traveller as border officials invent their own passport rules
On 22 February 2025 a passenger arrived at Oslo Airport aboard Norwegian flight DY1641 from Edinburgh, along with their partner and friends, for a one-week holiday.
The visitor had a British passport that was valid for travel to Norway and anywhere else in the Schengen area up to 25 March 2025 for a stay of up to 90 days. The passport expires on 26 November 2025.
All Schengen area nations – including almost all EU countries plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway – are required to apply the same conditions for entry to the frontier-free zone.
The visitor was legally entitled to remain in Norway until late June. But police at Oslo airport claimed, incorrectly, that the holidaymaker had insufficient validity on their passport. They ignored the Schengen Borders Code and declared: 'Your passport is issued 26 March 2015 and is therefore considered valid only until the 26 March 2025.'
After being detained, the passenger was put on a plane back to the UK with a notice saying they had been 'expelled from Norway'.
As The Independent has repeatedly pointed out, the pretence that a UK passport 'expires' on its 10th birthday has no basis in EU law.
Passports for third-country nationals such as UK citizens travelling to the Schengen area must be:
Issued within the last 10 years at the day of entry.
Valid for at least three months after the traveller plans to leave.
To emphasise that the two conditions are independent of each other, the EU's Practical Handbook for Border Guards specifies: 'The requirement that the travel document must have been issued within the previous 10 years must be fulfilled at the day of entry but not necessarily during the stay ' [our italics].
In other words, a British traveller could go to Norway the day before their passport reaches its 10th birthday, so long as they had at least three months before the expiry date printed on the document.
Despite this clear pan-European standard, the Norwegian authorities deported the British traveller, saying: 'Your planned departure from Norway and the Schengen area is 1 March 2025, and the passport is not valid for three months after the date of departure as the border regulation demands.
'You are therefore expelled from Norway.'
The Independent has not been able to identify the traveller. It is highly likely that other British tourists have been deported from Norway by police applying a non-existent rule.
The issue came to light when The Independent began investigating a series of cases in which passengers booked on flights from the UK to Norway on the budget airline Norwegian were wrongly turned away.
On 31 March 2025, Rachel Bolger was denied boarding for her Norwegian flight from London Gatwick to Bergen. She said: 'We had checked in our bags and had our passports checked. When we got to the departure gate, a very stern lady told me I could not travel as my passport was invalid. She said the expiry date printed on the passport was 'irrelevant' and that it expired 10 years exactly from the issue date.
'We tried to reason with her, she implied we were stupid for not knowing the rules. She called a supervisor who told her she was correct – even though her colleague adjacent tried to query it.
'She quickly and unsympathetically had our bags removed from the plane and we were escorted back through the airport.'
Ms Bolger's passport, which The Independent has seen, entitled her to enter Norway up to 15 June 2025 and stay there until mid-September.
Norwegian explained its decision to turn her away by supplying details of the deportation case in February.
The Norwegian Embassy in London has not responded to repeated requests for comment from The Independent about the conduct of the police.
Norway is not the only Nordic nation making up its own rules. The deputy chief superintendent of the Danish police, which is responsible for border control in Denmark, repeated the mistake of his counterparts in Norway. He claimed British passports must 'not be older than nine years and nine months from the date of issue'.
This has never been the case.
The legal position of anyone wrongly expelled by Norway or Denmark is confused. Normally airline passengers would be able to claim compensation for flight disarray. But if a nation chooses to apply non-existent rules to deny boarding or deport a visitor, the airline cannot be held responsible.
A spokesperson for the airline, Norwegian, said: 'We regret the disruption to our passengers due to inconsistent interpretation of Schengen passport rules by the Nordic countries.
'As an airline, we must comply with local border control directives, which are currently unclear. We have urged the authorities to provide clear, unified guidance to airlines, in order to prevent further passenger issues and avoid penalties for our company.'
The Independent maintains that the conditions for British travellers to the Schengen area as stated in the EU's Practical Handbook for Border Guards are perfectly clear, and has asked the European Commission to intervene to demand Norway and Denmark comply with the rules.
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