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Removing Used/Expired Visa Stickers from Passport

Removing Used/Expired Visa Stickers from Passport

Old Sep 23, 2016, 2:24 am
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Originally Posted by chollie
This discussion about removing visas makes me wonder. I got a e-visa that I printed at home for (IIRC) Cambodia. I didn't glue it in and neither did the immigration officials. It fell out after I went home, and I've traveled without it since. I have a passport with entry/exit stamps from a country that requires visas, but no actual visa in my passport.

Now that I'm reading this thread, I wonder if that could have caused a problem if someone had chosen to scrutinize my passport carefully for some reason. More importantly, without the actual visa on me, how could I prove I ever had one?
Most won't care, but I've seen situations where some airline, airline contractor or government employees made issues about removed staples in passport pages, paper clip indentations on visa pages, staples in passport pages, and so on. But these are the exception rather than the norm, and it is a sign of dealing with a person whose thinking is probably excessively suspicious.
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Old Sep 23, 2016, 8:49 am
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
Most won't care, but I've seen situations where some airline, airline contractor or government employees made issues about removed staples in passport pages, paper clip indentations on visa pages, staples in passport pages, and so on. But these are the exception rather than the norm, and it is a sign of dealing with a person whose thinking is probably excessively suspicious.
Slightly OT, but I was leaving FRA with a very full passport. I had been there overnight because of a cancelled flight.

The immigration agent flipped through my passport, asked me when I'd arrived, then flipped it back to me and said he couldn't find any entry stamp for that visit. I was slightly shocked, but fortunately for me, I knew (within a couple pages) where it had been stamped on arrival because I knew where the few remaining blank spaces were.

Awkward couple moments until I found it, though.

Oddly enough, while this was happening, a guy next to me was getting very excited. He was going back to somewhere in Africa. The agent was telling him there was no way he could have entered the country with the passport he was presenting because there was no visa? stamp? The guy had a letter and was trying to explain that he'd used the letter somehow to get in. The agent refused to look at the letter and finally just stamped the guy out.
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Old Sep 23, 2016, 9:25 am
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Originally Posted by chollie
Slightly OT, but I was leaving FRA with a very full passport. I had been there overnight because of a cancelled flight.

The immigration agent flipped through my passport, asked me when I'd arrived, then flipped it back to me and said he couldn't find any entry stamp for that visit. I was slightly shocked, but fortunately for me, I knew (within a couple pages) where it had been stamped on arrival because I knew where the few remaining blank spaces were.

Awkward couple moments until I found it, though.

Oddly enough, while this was happening, a guy next to me was getting very excited. He was going back to somewhere in Africa. The agent was telling him there was no way he could have entered the country with the passport he was presenting because there was no visa? stamp? The guy had a letter and was trying to explain that he'd used the letter somehow to get in. The agent refused to look at the letter and finally just stamped the guy out.
The German passport control often try to give me issues on exit about them not being able to find an entry stamp to match up for their exit stamp. My line is that the French, Italians, the Dutch and the Danes and some others are inconsistent in stamping my US passport and that they can see that my passports' stamps show me to be in one non-Schengen country or another every few days going back years but that there are just too many stamps for them or me to make an issue about matching up stamps -- especially as the stamps are irrelevant for my current legal presence status. Amusingly, they rarely notice the "not valid" kind of stamps in my passport.
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Old Sep 26, 2016, 2:41 am
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Originally Posted by chollie
Slightly OT, but I was leaving FRA with a very full passport. I had been there overnight because of a cancelled flight.

The immigration agent flipped through my passport, asked me when I'd arrived, then flipped it back to me and said he couldn't find any entry stamp for that visit. I was slightly shocked, but fortunately for me, I knew (within a couple pages) where it had been stamped on arrival because I knew where the few remaining blank spaces were.

Awkward couple moments until I found it, though.
LOL, you got an immigration agent who saw your passport and decided that he didn't want to waste 5 minutes searching for the entry stamp and figured (correctly) you would be able to find it faster.

Also they technically can (do? should?) look for other entry/exit stamps from the last 180 days, but probably didn't in yours.

The truly lazy thing would have been to assume that anyone (especially US citizen) with that many visa stamps is not overstaying and just stamp the exit, but FRA agents are probably too stringent to go there.
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Old Sep 26, 2016, 3:15 am
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Originally Posted by bbtrvl

The truly lazy thing would have been to assume that anyone (especially US citizen) with that many visa stamps is not overstaying and just stamp the exit, but FRA agents are probably too stringent to go there.
FRA agents look at the stamps in my passports and often just give up, including giving up on the assumption that "with that many visa stamps" I'm not overstaying and then "just stamp the exit". I've heard them say as much a few times.
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Old Sep 26, 2016, 5:36 am
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Originally Posted by flyerCO
As to your claim that there's no law that covers this, that's incorrect. Removing a visa is an alteration. If you then use such altered passport you've violated the law.
For that to be true, one should demonstrate that a foreign sticker is a(n integral) part of the passport. If not, then removing it doesn't alter the passport.
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Old Oct 1, 2016, 4:46 am
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
For that to be true, one should demonstrate that a foreign sticker is a(n integral) part of the passport. If not, then removing it doesn't alter the passport.
The rules are quite clear. Only a US official or foreign government official can make or remove/alter entries. Doing so yourself is an alteration to your passport and thus in violation.
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Old Oct 1, 2016, 5:29 am
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Originally Posted by flyerCO
Only a US official or foreign government official can make or remove/alter entries.
That is not necessarily the case. It all comes down to the details.
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Old Oct 1, 2016, 9:56 am
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Originally Posted by flyerCO
The rules are quite clear. Only a US official or foreign government official can make or remove/alter entries. Doing so yourself is an alteration to your passport and thus in violation.
Do any other countries have such rules?
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Old Oct 1, 2016, 12:39 pm
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
FRA agents look at the stamps in my passports and often just give up, including giving up on the assumption that "with that many visa stamps" I'm not overstaying and then "just stamp the exit". I've heard them say as much a few times.
The problem is passport control drones are wasteful <redacted>. They would rather stamp a blank page in the middle of a passport than put their stamp on a used page that has space for more stamps. The result being that my passports would have no blank pages for visas that require one or more pages (some visa requirements mandate two blank pages facing each other).

I used to use paper clips to reserve pages for visas, and to indicate where my entry stamp is. The paper clips annoyed passport control <redacted> because they think I am trying to hide my travel history.

My newest strategy with my current passport is to use transparent post it sheets on each blank passport page, with the written note "Reserved for visas", leaving the first two pages blank. This lets <redacted> see that I am not hiding anything. The side benefit of this it is easy to find that entry stamp. I can easily remember what are the current two open page numbers.

Sure enough, the first passport control <redacted> I ran into with my new passport, had to put the entry stamp on page 2.

I've had some questions, mostly in India about this practice. One <redacted> claiming there was no space to put his stamp. I told him, calmly, in a normal tone, "Please look at pages 1 and 2 for blank space". I repeated myself ten times, and it got through.

Another <redacted> asked me if this was practice of my country and then summoned his supervisor. Who then said what I was doing was fine.

My passport is 7 months old, 9 years, 5 months left on it, and pages 1 and 2 are full, with some stamps on pages 3 and 4, and the other 32 pages pristine. I think I might last the full ten years on this one.

Last edited by TWA884; Oct 1, 2016 at 2:57 pm Reason: Derisive terms used to grossly generalize others (please read forum's sticky post)
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Old Oct 1, 2016, 2:07 pm
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Well, I wouldn't be quite so denigrating to the border officers - but I can certainly say that the CBP are terrible at their stamping, at least if you're entering using ESTA/VWP. They select a random page, a random angle, and a random location - except for the one time I had a canadian side-trip, in which case both stamps with the same exit-date were on the same page. (Currently using a Visa, they stamp on the page opposite the Visa - I'm not quite sure what will happen once that page is full. Yes, I have GE, but my Visa requires manual verification so I still get stamped every time.)

CBSA at least seem to look for a page with some form of stamp already on it. Schengen agents in general seem to get their stamps nicely aligned, and I've seen some nice "complete" stamped pages (3 visits, 2 stamps each time) in my friend's passports.

SIN were the only people who looked for the first page closest to the photo page, which tbh should be the standard since then your passport fills up as needed, with empty pages all at one end.
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Old Oct 3, 2016, 4:03 am
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My US stamps in my US passports have been stamped in some of the most disruptive way possible -- things like CBP stamps on my visa stickers/stamps -- and it's been done seemingly mostly by way of carelessness than anything else.

I haven't cared to check if some of my visa stickers/stamps have been placed over US CBP stamps in expired/cancelled passports, but I wouldn't expect to encounter that a lot in my passports. Not all alterations done to US passports by individuals in a private capacity is against US law, but alterations increase the risk of having some kind of problems using that passport. And some of this may even go for expired/cancelled passports.

The general rule I have is that the newer and more pristine the passport looks the less likely it's to give a problem in its use -- except under a very limited set of circumstances.
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Old Sep 23, 2017, 2:48 am
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Originally Posted by jplus
I have been thinking about removing used full-page visa stickers from my passport to make room for stamps.

Any one done this?

Is this a very stupid idea? Thanks!
I sent this exact question to the UK passport authority.

They quickly replied and said that this was not a problam and of no interest to them. Only if the passport was physically damage such as a torn page would I have to get a replacement.

I have since removed many full and half page stickers. It helps if they are fresh and the glue has not bound itself to the page. I do not remove them if there is a stamp that is partially on the passport page, as that looks a little odd.

So far no issues anywhere.
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