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I am a US citizen holding multiple passports. The problem is that my US passport is getting very full despite having 6 more years on it. There are Visas on my passport which I do not want to lose when I get a new passport. I will be traveling to few countries and was thinking of using my non-US passport to exit the country. My intent is to ration my US passport usage. I also know a US Citizen must have US passport to enter and exit the country. Entering is a "no duh". Exiting.. well, we don't have exit checks in the US so I consider that a gray area. see para (b) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1185

Question 1. Can I use this non US passport to exit the country? Does the airline even care I as a US citizen am not using a passport to travel as long as the destinations are valid for entry with this non-US passport? This passport has no US visa on it to allow me to enter. Therefore, I cannot enter or reside in the US with this passport.

The first leg of my trip includes a 1 day layover in Japan which I plant to exit the airport and walk around tokyo. My non-US passport will allow me into Japan visa free.

The next leg is from Japan to Vietnam. Vietnam requires a visa authorization letter (from both my passports) and then they will issue a visa on arrival (which takes up an entire page on my passport plus half a page for entry/exit stamps). My intent is to obtain a visa authorization and arrival on this non-US passport.

Question 2: When I check to my flight leaving the US. Can I just show my non-US passport with the visa authorization for vietnam? Or will I will I be rejected as I don't have an authorization for my US passport?

Alternatively, I was thinking of getting visa authorization letter for both passports. They are cheap. I can just show US passport at check in with visa authorization. This will clear the airline to let me board. when I arrive in Japan I can whip out my non US passport. When I arrive in Vietnam I can whip out my non-US passport with the visa authorization letter. this way I have avoided losing 2-3 pages in my US passport.

The next leg is to the country of my non-US passport. This is inconsequential to my issues.

The final leg is back to the US and I will enter using US passport. No stamps on entry.

Greg Hewgill
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Andy S
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2 Answers2

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There's no law requiring you to "use" a US passport when you leave the US. The statute you link to requires only that you "bear" a valid US passport. If you have it with you, you are certainly bearing it. Furthermore, there is no penalty for violating that law; the penalty was removed in 1978.

I check in all the time for flights departing the US with my non-US passport. Nobody has ever asked about my immigration status. If they did I would simply show my US passport. If they asked me why I didn't check in with it, I would say that I'm going to use the other passport at my destination and I don't want to get the airline or myself in trouble by showing a different document from the one on the passenger manifest.

phoog
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Regarding Vietnam, to save pages, at least as a US citizen (what is your other citizenship?) you can simply get an e-visa instead of an authorisation to get a visa on arrival. You will then only get entry and exit stamps in the passport.

Also, airlines don't usually care about your immigration status, and as you said the US doesn't do border control on exit. So when checking in for the flight to Japan, you can show either passport and it won't make any difference regarding the space in your US passport.

Crazydre
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