Do they stamp passports anymore?

Factual Questions
1

I’m wondering … Do passports get stamped anymore? Is there an official system for this?
My American passport gets stamped at rare intervals. Back in 1993 or so, when I traveled from Boston to Paris, I got a French stamp. No American stamp…

Fast forward to 1999, when I’m an American stduent applying for a Canadian student visa. My passport gets stamped upon my entry into Canada … and never stamped again despite my many trips back and forth through customs. (The customs official put it in some machine once – when I was taking the bus across the border rather than driving – which made a stamping noise but left no mark.)

I flew from Boston to Rome, and back, via London both ways this summer … I got a stamp when I returned to Boston, but that was it.
Are passport stamps archaic?

2

My experience is that you get your passport stamped if the person in charge of doing the stamping feels like it. In countries where it’s not a big deal to enter, then you don’t get it stamped.

Airport customs officials almost always stamp my passport. American officials in Canada are fanatical about it.

I was on vacation in Finland and I took a boat ride to Estonia for a day. The Estonian customs official at the port asked me if I wanted my passport stamped. I said no, but I was quite seasick and really didn’t know what she was asking me.

3

Pretty much what Bob said.

However, from what I was told and read in travel industry magazines, most of what the airlines and foriegn countries need in information, they already have before your plane touches down. [vague]Information is collected (by scanning? barcode? dunno) and sent via wire/email/something over to the city you are flying.

That way the authorities already have their profiles done up and have an idea of who to look out for.

4

Oh, and if you are traveling to a country where you need a visa, then yes, you will get your passport stamped. I use to have clients who had to buy extra pages for their passports every so often because they did alot of business in China and Australia.

5

Oh, and if you are traveling to a country where you need a visa, then yes, you will get your passport stamped. I use to have clients who had to buy extra pages for their passports every so often because they did alot of business in China and Australia.

6

I travel abroad several times a year. My passport is always stamped on return to the US. Last March the official didn’t stamp my passport at the Barcelona airport. I insisted he did, just to be on the safe side, and also because I like to see all those little stamps. Egyptian ones are pretty.

7

[nitpick] You don’t have to buy extra pages for your passport. Any US Embassy or passport office will give them to you free. And they stamp the first page saying where the extra pages were issued and that they are official.[/nitpick]

I love the stamps in my passport and I ma really sad that many countries are not doing it anymore. To me, the stamps were always a kind of souvenier. My current passport (with the extra pages) is stamped on almost every page and I love to just sit and look at all the stamps and remember my trips. Unfortunately, this passport expires in a couple of months and then I’ll have a brand new empty one. Bummer.

And, in case anyone else really likes getting their passport stamped, know that at most airports if you ask for a stamp, they will give you one.

8

From what I’ve noticed, most countries in Western Europe don’t bother…except for Great Britain. They’re pretty good about stamping. Otherwise, central and eastern European countries are pretty excited about having their own states, so they stamp away to their heart’s content. the only western european country i ever got stamped in was austria, crossing the hungarian border. otherwise, nobody else really seems to care. all the better, anyway.

9

I have also noticed that stamping passports is fairly random. I traveled to Italy last year and did not receive a stamp when I entered Rome or left Florence. However, they did stamp my passport in Paris where I was stuck over night.

When I got off the plane in Rome there was a very long line of people waiting to get through customs. After waiting in line about 10 minutes (and not moving one inch!) they opened up another line. They called all Americans over to the new line and just passed us all through hardly even glancing at our passports. I guess Americans aren’t considered security risks. I was going to ask them to stamp my passport but they were moving us all through so fast that I didn’t even get a chance.

10

My recent experience, and a question for anybody familiar with British immigration authorities:

US to Spain and back, via Madrid Barajas airport (1996): Stamped in both directions.

US to UK and back, via Heathrow (1997): Stamped upon arrival, but not departure. Stated length of stay was 9 days, left on schedule.

US to UK, via Heathrow (2000): Stamped upon arrival. Stated length of stay was, IIRC, 2 weeks. Actually stayed almost a month. (I would have told the truth had I known what I was going to do, but my travel plans were somewhat fluid.)

UK to Ireland, by train: Not stamped, no forms to fill out, no questions asked.

Ireland to France, by ferry: Ditto.

France to Spain, by train: Ditto.

Spain to UK, by ferry: Stamped at both ends. Stated length of stay 8 days. Left on schedule.

UK to US, via Gatwick Airport: Not stamped.

Got all that? OK, here’s the problem: I have multiple stamps indicating entry to the UK and none at all indicating when (or if) I left the country. Obviously I must have left at some time or I wouldn’t have had to re-enter, but at least in theory, I could have spent the years from 1997 to 2000 bumming around the country and working illegally, returned to the US briefly, come back and done more of the same (with a short day trip to Spain). Is this the sort of thing that will raise any eyebrows on my next trip to England, which will be in December if I can scrape up the money? If so, can I do anything to document my good faith? Or am I just paranoid? (For personal and professional reasons, I anticipate having to go back fairly frequently; I have no intention of working illegally, but I fit the profile of someone who might – i.e., young and poor.)

11

My experience with passport stamps in Europe was kind of erratic, too. In April of 1999, I flew from the U.S. into Barajas, Madrid, and returned the same way, with nary a Spanish stamp. They did stamp it when I went through customs coming back through Philadelphia. I flew from Barcelona to Madrid the day before I flew from Madrid back to the U.S., and for some reason, they stamped me in Barcelona. Also, nobody stamped me crossing into Lisbon from Madrid and back out of Lisbon to Madrid (via airplane). I figured they didn’t have to stamp me in Portugal because of EU integration or something.

I was in South America from August to December, 1996. The Argentines stamped me at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires both entering and leaving the country from the U.S. I took the ferry to Uruguay for a weekend, and both countries stamped me entering and leaving. I took a trip up to the north of the country, and just to be safe, I obtained a visa for Brazil. I crossed over into Brazil via bus during the day – no stamps, and I’m not sure customs even stopped us. No stamps or stops when I crossed over for the day into Paraguay, either. But lots of tourists do this, so maybe they just don’t bother with stamps in the Iguazu area.

Durned if I know why they do any of this.

–Amy

12

Lucky,

I just got a new passport to replace one that was over 15 years old. I was also kind of sad about handing over the old one. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they returned the old passport to me when they sent me my new one. (I think it was stamped or perforated in some way to show that it’s no longer valid.)

13

Lucky, you were right to nitpick. Recalling the conversations with my clients was pretty much like this,
" Crap, I gotta go down to the passport office and get more pages put it…like I have time for this…"

14

seems like most of the travel being done on this board is centered around Western Europe. hmmm.

every single country i’ve visited in Asia has given me a stamp, even if i’m just passing through for a day. even got a little anonymous one in Cuba.

in planning for an Africa trip, i have been told that you should even carry around extra passport pictures because you’ll need them on visa applications.

and yes, i love and cherish all my passport stamps.

15

Cher3,
Yes, I know they give the old passport back to you, but it won’t be the same when I’m standing in a customs line with a shiny, new, unbent passport with the gold embossing still legible. I like my tatered-up-been-around-the-world-a-few- times-and-looks-it old one.

Take comfort, hapaXL. I spend a lot fo time in the East (though I’m way jealous of your upcoming Africa adventure). You are right about the passports. Every Eastern country I’ve ever visited has stamped it. In fact, between the visas and the stamps, India and Nepal take a full page and a half each. It seems to fall right in line with the Eastern idea that any transation requires 14 officials in three different offices, each of whom must have at least one stamp and 5 forms which must be filled out in triplicate (with really old carbon paper in between). But first you have to go to pay the fee at the bank and bring back the pink copy of the bank reciept. But the bank is closed now. And our office will be closed next week…

16

traveling between countries of the EU you do not go through passport control any more. yes, European countries stamp less and less. BTW, Cuba will also NOT stamp your passport.

Asian countries will stamp.

An the worst of all (for foreigners) is the USA. The INS is very anal about these things.

I would prefer if countries would not stamp my passport. The only benefit I have accrued is being hassled in some other country because they did not like where I had been before.

17

In the early '90s I did a little of E. Europe while things were a bit chaotic. Going into Hungary from Austria they used a very strange stamp (vague markings, etc.-- I think it was a provisional thing) and carelessly put it on the “Amendments” page instead of one of the regular ones. For months every time I would go into another . . . ahem, “complicated” country the border guys would ask endless questions about this (a lot of “so, why were you visiting HERE?” from the Yugoslavian guards, too).

Also, coming back from Amsterdam last summer, apparently there had been a bomb threat at some point, because as you waited in line to get a bording pass everyone was asked in detail about their recent whereabouts-- where do you go, which countries, etc, day-by-day. If you had hotel receipts verifying your whereabouts you got through faster. Very strange.

18

Odd…I’ve been a lot of places in the last two years, and the only place that did not stamp my passport was France.

19

[Passport stamps]

The short answer, no. Every country is of course free to establish their own rules. For nations with computerized records of entry and exit, its a bit extraneous.

20

It really, really does disappoint me that there are countries where a passport doesn’t get stamped any longer. Even worse, some countries will just wave you straight on in without even checking your passport! :eek: One of my friends told me that they travelled from the city of London in the UK to the city of Paris in France on a high speed "Eurostar"train and both ends, leaving, entering and returning, they didn’t even get asked to show their passport or Euro ID card! :eek: