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Dual citizen of USA/Japan over the age of 22.

What I want to do:

  1. Fly USA to China
  2. 15 hour layover in China (use 72 hour visa-free thingy to see Beijing)
    • Would China care about which passport is used?
  3. Enter Japan with US passport so that I can get a tourist visa stamp and get the JR rail pass
  4. Exit Japan within 90 days for an exit stamp on US passport.
    • Not sure if I should enter destination country with US or Japan passport. Maybe there's not really a risk there of showing both if necessary?
  5. Go back to Japan and enter with Japanese passport for long term stay.

What should I watch out for?

I'm very lightly aware of Advance Passenger Information Systems (APIS)...

user49977
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1 Answers1

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The basic advice at I have two passports/nationalities. How do I use them when I travel? applies, which means your plan should work.

More broadly speaking, Japan is not one of those countries that makes an active effort to determine if you are a naughty dual citizen, so you don't need to engage in complex passport switching shenanigans. The primary problem is renewing your Japanese passport, but that's another story.

Japanese citizens can enter China without a visa for 15 days, not just 72 hours. But if your layover is only 15 hours, this is of no use to you, and I would just stick with the US passport for the whole journey to make life easier.

One thing you will want to watch out for is airline/country requirements for return tickets. For example, if you try to exit Japan to country X on your US passport, the airline may not let you board or immigration enter unless you have a ticket out of X -- and if that ticket out is back to Japan, but in a different name because it's for your Japanese passport, things may get complicated.

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lambshaanxy
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