No passport stamp at FCO - is this new?
 

I just returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Rome and the weather was perfect! But when going through passport control, both on arrival and departure, all the agent did was glance at the photo page and hand the passport back to me. Fast and easy, but I like getting passport stamps. Last year I got stamps in and out of Milan, is Rome different? Or is this a recent change?

In case it matters, I have a US passport.

As an aside, the Italian passport control and customs was much quicker, easier and more pleasant than my "welcome home" in the US. But there is another thread for that...

How did you get to Rome? Did you land direct from the USA or did you connect from another country within the EU?

Delta flight 240, nonstop from Atlanta, and Delta 241 on the return.

Interesting - normally when entering the EU from the USA you get the entry stamp (FCO with the inward arrow) and the opposite on departure.

I do remember departing Europe for the US a year or two ago and the immigration agent looked at my passport and handed it back (don't remember if it was swiped thru the reader or not). I politely asked for a stamp and he happily obliged. YMMV.

I was in Italy earlier this month and my passport was stamped both on arrival at MXP and when departing from FCO.

It's Rome, you're an American, standard practice in my experience. If you wanted a stamp, you should have asked them.
There's nothing consistent with Schengen border controls. Some scan & stamp my passport, others scan it and don't stamp it, others scan my residence card and not my passport and refuse to stamp anything, and yet others look at the passport and let me enter. Consistently inconsistent.

Passport Stamp
 

It's at the discretion of the person sitting at the desk. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. It's not just at FCO. I've had it happen many places, even driving across European borders in the 90's before the EU was founded. When the agent at Belgium didn't stamp my passport or my children's' I complained, and he told me it was not necessary, and then he grudgingly stamped them. I'd say that nowadays, going to the EU 5-6 X's per year, stamping is about 80% regardless of where I land from the U.S. Just ask if you want it.

When I went to/fr FCO in May/June, the passport guys just waved everyone through. Maybe because I was one of the first off the plane (was sitting in Envoy). Had a US passport in hand, and from what I saw they just waved us all through. Same thing when exiting.

After being questioned quite thoroughly (though very respectfully) while going through LHR, I thought this was quite odd.

My (US) passport was not stamped either, both on arrival (AA) and departure from FCO.

If you mean you weren't stamped at LHR -- that's normal procedure, no exit checks in the UK.

No, I meant that there pretty much was no immigration for Rome. There were agents in booths, but they just waved everyone by.

Actually, I've received stamps in my passport every time I've entered + exited the UK.

For years pre-9/11 when arriving at FCO the agents wouldn't even look at my US passport. I would slide it under the divider and they just pushed it back to me without opening it. Or if they did open it, they would almost never stamp it. After 9/11 they got much more officious, but maybe they're going back to the old ways.

Departing FCO for the US on Oct. 28, 2011, there was no passport stamp, even though I asked for one. No, we just do that for visas, was the polite response. I suppose I could have insisted, or asked for a supervisor.

So, I will need to make do with my inbound BRU stamp on this trip.

Now, I did get a passport stamp while visiting the Republic of San Marino, in northern Italy. There, you have to pay for the privilege, 5 Euros. But, you get an actual physical stamp placed in the passport, which is then also stamped with an ink stamper.

We had the same experience arriving at FCO from the US. Passport control glanced at our passports, but no one in our party had their passport stamped.

The slight difficulty came when we were going to return to the US. We had continued our trip by train to Switzerland and flew out of ZRH. Departure passport checks there were more thorough, with passports reviewed for arrival stamps. It wasn't a big problem, but we did each spend a couple extra minutes at the window while every page of our passport was checked and we were questioned about how we arrived without a stamp. When we explained how things were handled on arrival at FCO, one agent shook his head and commented "Not good," but we were then allowed on our way.

Same thing happened to me leaving from Hamburg, heading for London. The passport agent could not find my entry stamp, and went through the pages over and over. Turned out he was misreading the date on the actual entry stamp.