Dual nationality, EU and Australian. Does it matter which passport is "travelled on"
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 26 Jul, 2023
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I have dual nationality (UK – Australia), and I always show both on departure. This stops them getting worried that they will have to deny me access to the flight because of visa issues. They should still only use one of them (the ‘local’ one) for their record keeping though. On arrival I just show the local one as that is less hassle for everyone.
A few searches through this site will discover pairs of countries that don’t like to see each other’s stamps in your passport. If you plan things right, you can use separate passports to make this less of a worry for you. For example you might use one passport for Israel and the other for all the countries that might not like seeing an Israel stamp, or whose stamps might raise eyebrows when you go to Israel.
I don’t know what the collections of countries are these days. When I was a child my father had one set of countries including USSR and Cuba in one passport, and another set including the USA in the other, and he had a much smoother travel experience than his colleagues with only one passport. Also, you can choose the shorter line most of the time when you’re interacting with a neutral country and don’t care whose passport the stamp goes in. Or if you need to send your passport away to get a visa in it (still happens) you can travel on the other in the meantime. Plenty of advantages but you will do best if you plan a little in advance.
Definitely you should use your Australian passport in Australia and Greek passport in Greece (because for these countries you are their citizen and they don’t really care if you have a dual nationality). And as others have said it’s safest to use the same passport to enter and exit the country. However, in many countries the police would not check your passport on exit (I don’t think anyone checked my passport when leaving the UK), so this discussion might be a bit academic.
- French citizen, did I need a visa in 2004 and 2006 when I visited the US as a child?
- Can I re-enter the USA after a 1-day overstay 3 years ago?
As long as you leave and enter on the same passport it is fine…
for instance I have a South African and Swiss passport.
Leave and enter SA on my SA passport and enter and leave Switzerland on my Swiss passport.
No hassles!
It does seem weird but for all the country cares you haven’t left an airplane the whole time!
- Is it reasonable to do the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian without pre-booking all the train tickets?
- Where is this Utah triangle monolith located?
Aas long as you leave a country with the same passport that you entered in on, then you’re ok.
So:
- Option 1: Entering Aus on Aus passport, leaving on Greek = bad
- Option 2: Entering on Greek, leaving on Aus = bad
- Option 3: Entering and leaving on Greek passport = good
- Option 4: Entering and leaving on Aus passport = good
The reason being for counts and tracking – if a Greek tourist has entered Australia, but has not been seen leaving, panic ensues (well probably not, but that’s the theory anyway). That passport has ‘overstayed’. And you NEVER want to get pinged for overstaying.
Once you’ve left a country, meh, they no longer care about you. So when you come back to the UK, you can use whatever passport you want, so long as that passport has the legal entitlement to work there (if you’re working there). Greek passport is obviously easy for this, but the Aussie one you’ll require a visa of some sort, if you present that at the border, as you’re now being treated as a non-EU citizen (as that’s the passport you chose to present).
Hope that makes sense.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘
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