Crew Visa & Passport Expiry Tracker

Many countries refuse entry — and airlines refuse boarding — if a passport expires within six months of arrival (some apply 3 months, e.g. Schengen counts 3 months beyond intended departure). For crew, who routinely transit exactly these jurisdictions to join vessels, the practical effect is that a passport's usable life ends six months before its printed date. Treat the printed expiry minus 180 days as the real deadline, and renew at the amber flag — passport renewals also trigger visa-transfer work that needs its own lead time.

The C1/D is the combined transit/crewmember visa that lets seafarers and certain aircrew enter the US to join, work aboard and depart on a vessel or aircraft. Validity varies by nationality under reciprocity schedules — up to 5 years for some, much shorter for others — and each entry is typically admitted for a limited period (29 days for crew landing privileges). Crucially, it must be applied for at a consulate with an interview in most cases, and queues can be long; a crewing office tracking C1/D expiries 6 months out avoids losing US-rotation candidates to appointment backlogs.

Usually the visa remains valid in the expired passport, and you travel with both booklets — the US explicitly allows carrying the old passport containing a valid visa alongside the new passport. But it's policy-dependent: some countries require a transfer or new application, some airlines' staff mishandle two-booklet travel, and a damaged or cancelled-with-holes old passport can void the arrangement. For crew on tight joining schedules, the safe pattern is to plan visa transfers/renewals at the same time as passport renewal — and always verify the specific country's current rule before relying on the two-booklet method.

For several countries, yes — vessels and crew rotating through parts of West Africa and South America still face yellow-fever certificate checks at ports and airports. Since 2016 the WHO position is that a single dose provides lifetime validity, and the certificate should be honored for life, but enforcement on the ground hasn't uniformly caught up, and some states' entry requirements have their own quirks. Keep the certificate in the matrix anyway (it's also commonly requested by crewing agencies for specific trades), record the vaccination date, and check the destination's current requirement when a rotation is planned.