Comments on: How to Get a Duplicate U.S. Passport

By: Sonja

Sonja — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:01:10 +0000

I have a Swiss and a Canadian passport and i always have both of them with me, but i use the one with wich is easyer to enter a country…))) Not to much questions, visas or whatever. Helped me already several times…

By: David Stern

David Stern — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:14:14 +0000

Elise – you can ask the Israelis not to stamp your passport – they have an exit visa piece of paper to show you entered legally when exiting and they just stamp that. I heard that works. I’ve never done that because I have two passports (British and Australian) and have no intention of going to Syria. I used to live in Israel and a lot of my family does now. I have been to Tunisia and flew from there to Tel Aviv with no problems (via Frankfurt but my luggage was forwarded on to Tel Aviv).

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:59:42 +0000

@Elise,

It’s just the Israeli stamp that is problematic. If you have that one, you won’t be able to go to Syria or a number of other countries (Jordan and Egypt are OK). Yes, that’s a sufficient reason and they are used to that. The service company did everything for me in terms of the actual application– and yes, I think you could do it for yourself if you had the time. Happy travels.

By: Elise

Elise — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:59:41 +0000

Chris-
I’ll be studying abroad in Amman, Jordan, next year, and have heard that trying to have Jordanian, Israeli, Syrian, and Egyptian stamps can make life hard. Is this the kind of good reason that would suffice? Also- could you expound on the service company you used? What exactly did they do? (Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of cheap, but I’m a student and would rather not spend $50 on something I could do myself…)
Elise

By: Kurt Masur

Kurt Masur — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:02:30 +0000

“Recently I’ve heard something about passport cards. How do these play into the usefulness of a passport book/applying for visas and stuff, or are they really only good for ID kinds of use?”

The Passport Card is especially useful to us people who live on or near the border. It’s the size of a credit card and you can always carry it with you. And yeah, it’s cheaper too.

However, the Card also has an added benefit to me. I too have a Passport book with tons of stamps (not as many or diverse as Chris’). Each time I pass through US Immigration, by showing them the Passport Card, I don’t have to show them my Passport book with all its stamps. If the officer gets too curious or suspicious about the stamps, he will start asking me so many questions. One time (before I made the decision to get the card), an officer flipped through my book’s pages, and said “wow, you have a lot of stamps….you even have extra pages… how do you pay for all this traveling? What do you do for a living?”. I fully detest such interrogations (even though I have nothing to hide). Based on that experience, I decided I needed a Passport Card when entering by land. So, with the Card, they won’t ever have to see my Passport book pages. I guess they’re very sensitive to drug trafficking and smugglers going across borders. (I get the impression that CBP officers at the border are more aggresive than their colleagues at the international terminals at airports. So far all of my US international arrivals at airports have been very smooth in regards to CBP officers, with very little to no questioning.

By: Tuuli

Tuuli — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:37:59 +0000

I’ve got dual Finnish-US nationality, and going to Brazil with my Finnish passport saved me the $50 bill my other America friends would have to spend on a visa… woo!

By: jphripjah

jphripjah — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:10:39 +0000

This is fascinating. Let me ask, is the duplicate passport marked as “duplicate passport” and/or does it contain other markings letting U.S. and foreign immigration people know that it is a duplicate, and doesn’t that freak them out and cause them to ask more questions about why you have a duplicate?

If it’s only good for two years, wouldn’t the fact that it was issued in 2009 and expires in 2011 be a red flag to immigration officers that it’s a duplicate? Does it otherwise look just like a regular passport?

I would imagine that if you’re “caught” traveling in some third world countries with both passports on you, it could be problematic.

Anyway, this is great to know about. Thanks.

By: Bear

Bear — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:57:39 +0000

I am assuming that you are using the larger US Passport that comes with extra pages?? It doesn’t cost extra, is much sturdier and provides quite a few more pages. I can’t remember exactly how many more but I think it’s close to double the number of pages that are in a standard US Passport.

I went to that on my last renewal and am very glad that I did. My last one was looking pretty shabby, this one is much tougher than the standard. Plus, it will certainly take much longer before I need to add pages!

By: Angela

Angela — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:37:14 +0000

I had no idea about the duplicate passport option! When your 10 year passport expires, do you apply in person for a new passport rather than give back your passport as seems to be required when renewing online?

I’ve been struggling with whether I want to send mine off with the online renewal or or not!?#!

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:16:39 +0000

@David

I would think, though I’m not certain, that if the State Dept issued you a new passport to replace a “lost” one, they would almost certainly cancel the first one issued to you, making the whole exercise neutral at best. I don’t think you’d have any chance of winding up with 2 passports by telling them you lost one.