Division 3 ‘Valid until’ space

The relevant date of expiry shall be entered in this space or, if necessary, a word or a code indicating unlimited validity.

Member States shall forward to the General Secretariat of the Council the various words or codes referred to in the previous subparagraph, to enable the Secretariat to draw up a list for distribution to all Member States. Such a list could also be used as an additional device for discovering falsifications.

Where an expiry date is entered, the date must be entered by means of three groups of two figures in the following order, two for the day, two for the month and two for the year, to be separated by a hyphen, and the first figure shall be a nought where the number is lower than 10 (e.g. 15-01-96: 15 January 1996).