Why My Passport Has Started Confusing Immigration Officers

Published: April 6, 2017

I’m fortunate enough to have dual citizenship (I have a US and German passport), which is a great privilege. Not only does it get me access to more visa-free destinations and fast track lines, but it also increases my total passport stamping capacity.

German-US-Passport

Beyond the actual usefulness of the passports, they’re also sentimental to me. They travel with me everywhere I go, and each stamp in them represents another trip. While I renewed my German passport a bit over a year, my US passport is up for renewal in 2019, so it gets a couple more years with me. I’ll be sad to turn it in, though I guess my new passport will represent a clean slate of travel. But that’s not really the point of this post.

My US passport is a mess. It has more security stickers on the back of it than a toddler with access to a pack of a thousand stickers could pile on. It has extra pages, which are affixed as if they’re done as part of an elementary school arts & crafts project. Of course there are also all kinds of stamps and visas.

However, the past year or so there has been a further “problem,” which has led to some confusion and entertainment. The front of my passport has progressively been fading, to the point that you can’t even really tell what country it’s from anymore. That’s despite the fact that I’d like to think I take good care of my passport. The below picture actually makes it look better than it does when viewed in real life from most angles.

Passport

At first I thought it was funny, but now it gets looks at immigration, and sometimes even questions. “What happened to your passport?” I guess too much travel!

A couple of weeks ago in Kuwait the immigration officer took my passport, ran his hands across the front of it, laughed, and said “too much travel?”

So at this point I’m not sure if my identity-less passport cover is like a battle scar to be proud of, or something I should try to hide at immigration, by opening the page when I hand it over.

Has anyone else experienced extreme fading on their passport cover?

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Matteo Guest

September 26, 2017, 11:50 pm

I have 3 EU passports through descent and US jus soli. So 4 passports to me is priceless not only in travel but banking as well as buying land (farmland). Many never understand the true value to citizenship. Priceless.

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Pierre Jourdin Guest

September 26, 2017, 8:36 pm

I wonder whether you could get the cover logo reprinted on. Maybe I'd start a new printing business.

Emirates4Ever Guest

April 8, 2017, 8:14 am

@Charlie McMillan yeah, in fact, they give us our old passports back when they give us our new ones, which they have punched holes in the old one. I have several US passports I keep as keepsakes, and to compile the list of countries I've visited.

straver Guest

April 7, 2017, 5:47 pm

Had this happen to a passport of mine years ago. A lot of traveling, and for a brief period I had to carry it as my primary form of ID. Was only an "issue" once. Before the 2004 EU expansion, was driving from the Czech Republic into Germany near Dresden. The Czechs had an exit checkpoint, and were looking at passports. Handed mine over, and the guy opened it and got a very concerned look on his face. Told me to wait while he took it over to the other two guys at the checkpoint (was a very small one with little traffic, so they were just standing around). Got that "oh shit" type feeling wondering what it was about as he showed it to his colleagues and pointed at me. Thankfully, one of the other guys just started laughing, grabbed my passport from his hands, turned it over it, and opened the front of it. As the label on the front was completely worn off, the guy has opened the passport from the back, saw a blank page instead of the picture page, and got concerned. I don't understand a word of Czech, but it was easy to tell his colleagues were teasing him pretty hard about it, haha. He quickly handed me my passport back and sent me on my way. I made sure to hand it over either open or with the front up thereafter, until I got it replaced.. and without carrying it in a pocket, haven't had it rub off like that again.

AlexS Diamond

April 7, 2017, 1:18 pm

Enjoy it while you can -- the US will no longer add additional pages to an existing passport. Instead, you now have to re-apply for a whole new passport/renewal when you run out of pages. On the positive side, you can get the 52-page passport for the same price as the normal 28-page book. My passport is ~7 years old now and no fading, despite being carried in my work bag every day. No signs of fading/wear on it.

Why My Passport Has Started Confusing Immigration Officers

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