stompey5

As I prepare for my trip to Thailand/Cambodia/Singapore - I was looking at my passport and realized I had the following stamps from my honeymoon:

Croatia Entry via Airport
Slovenia Entry via Land
Croatia Exit via Airport

I never realized that we did not get exit stamps - I believe we were just waived through after showing our USA passports.

On my trip to Thailand, we will be stopping in Vienna for 14 hours and Frankfurt for 6 on the way home (and plan on leaving the airports). Will I have any issues missing this exit stamp?

chrissxb

no. noone will check the stamps, entry and exit is recorded electronically within the Schengen system.

stompey5

The border guard did not swipe our passports - he just looked at them and sent us through... so that would presumably mean we do not have a record of leaving?

chrissxb

you do have an electronic passport, don't you? RFID chip included ...

stompey5

nope - still have about 5 years left on the old paper one!

chrissxb

should be fine, they have electronic passports for quite some time. I wouldn't worry at all exit stamps are not checked in europe as much as in some other countries. ...

davewill

I've had this happen quite a few times. It's not something to worry about. In fact, I once had French border guards not even give me an entry stamp. They just waved me through with a bored look on their face. Had no problems later leaving Schengen.

Aviatrix

I presume you visited Croatia and Slovenia on the same trip?

In that case, even if they do query the missing exit stamp, it's easily explained. You have your Croatian stamp for dates either side of the Slovenian entry stamps, it's pretty obvious that you had to leave Slovenia to get back to Croatia.

As others have said, you should have nothing to worry about.

stompey5

Yep - we landed in Zagreb - got stamped. A day later drove to Slovenia - did not get an exit stamp from Croatia - got an entry stamp to Slovenia.

About 4 days later drove back to Croatia - no exit stamp from Slovenia - no entry stamp to Croatia.

A week later departed from Dubrovnik in the air - exit stamp.

I just wanted to make sure I would be able to visit Vienna and Frankfurt on my layovers... as we went east to get to SE Asia for this reason!

AlanInDC

I had a contrary experience.

I entered the Schengen area via CDG (from U.S). The immigration official neglected to stamp my passport. I traveled to Denmark and then Germany. When leaving FRA to return to the U.S. the German border official said I didn't have an entry stamp and so this exit is illegal -- there could be a big fine, etc, I could have been in Europe for months. I showed him my air itinerary. After he heard I entered via CDG, he had that look of disgust on his face, like those inefficient French. Also, from my past stamps, he could see that I made multiple trips to/through FRA previously, of 1-2 week duration. He let me go with a strong warning to be sure to get the stamp next time.

stockmanjr

I entered via MXP a few years ago and just got waived through. Upon attempting to leave via ZRH the police stopped me and asked where was my entry stamp. I told him where I entered and he ranted in French about the Italian border police. It was quite an animated rant for a Swiss man!
Cheers
Howie

zerogx

I had a similar experience when departing ZRH (Australian passport). I entered Spain on foot from Gibraltar, and the Spanish border "guard" didn't want to even look at anybody's passport - people were just walking through. I forced him to look at mine, but he said he couldn't be bothered to get a stamp and if I wanted one I would have to go to some other building, which turned out to be empty.

There was a Spanish policeman nearby who couldn't speak English, not sure if he understood me, but he replied with what I heard as "passports are not stamped at this border". Is this true?

I did get a Gibraltar entry stamp, but the ZRH passport guy didn't know where Gibraltar is! He attempted to swipe my passport several times and typed something into his computer. Will I be held up when entering Switzerland in the future?

qvzn

When this happened, did he give you an exit stamp?

One time entering Zurich, the immigration agent flipped through my passport, then complained he couldn't find the entry stamp for my last trip (< 3 weeks prior). I offered to help him find it, but on mentioning that I entered in Madrid, he lost interest, stamped it and let me through. So they do occasionally check stamps, but my impression is that without another reason to be suspicious, mentioning entry/exit through one of the, ah, less diligent EU ports results in quick passage (and perhaps a rant, as someone mentioned)

Thankfully those less diligent ports have always stamped me so far, so I have a 1:1 entry/exit stamp ratio, but if I didn't and were concerned, I'd imagine bringing some kind of evidence of entering/leaving on a certain date would be sufficient (maybe, e.g., ticket stubs, old itinerary)

Non-RFID passport, FWIW

Palal

Certain countries (namely entry/exit points in Spain, France and Italy) routinely don't stamp passports, unless you request it (sometimes the request has to be extremely persistent, such as in Gibraltar<=>Spain, Melilla<=>Morocco, Ceuta<=>Morocco.

zerogx

Yeah, and he put it next to the Gib entry stamp too, so I guess I'm ok.

Why was he looking for it? Did you get stamped out after that trip, and did your passport get swiped to record your movements electronically?

When entering and exiting France my passport has been stamped, but I am quite sure it has never been swiped. So I now realize that if I took a train from France to Switzerland and tried to exit, the border guy would have the same reaction, although a French Schengen stamp would be more likely to convince him than a Gibraltarian one.

Because of the sovereignty issue? Maybe government higher-ups aren't aware of this loophole, like the Lille Eurostar one, but I can't believe that Denmark would want illegal immigrants reaching its territory because Spain wants to make a political statement...