Which passports to use travelling between two countries of citizenship?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 22 Jul, 2023
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Each country is basically free to set their own rules. Generally speaking, presenting the local passport when you are a citizen is the most practical course of action but it’s not like it would be some sort of overarching principle that applies to all countries in the world.
In all likelihood, Denmark does not care either way. The US, on the other hand, does make it mandatory to enter with your US passport if you are a citizen. In practice, doing what you have been doing therefore seems like a good solution. The only thing that could create problems is staying in Denmark for more than 90 days. US citizens who are not also Danish citizens would be liable for a fine if the border guards notice it when leaving Denmark (by checking the entry stamp). Producing the Danish passport at this stage should avoid any serious consequences but you can expect some confusion or complaints from the border guards.
I also seem to recall it’s mandatory to present the same passport to the airline (airlines share data with the US government for all legs of your trip to or from the US) but I can’t find a reference for that at the moment. To satisfy this requirement and still use your Danish passport in Denmark, you would need to show your kids’ US passports at the check-in desk (and make sure that’s the one the airline is recording in their system) and then the Danish passports at the police passport check.
The general rule is that you should always use the country’s passport when entering the country. As the other answers note, many countries (eg. the US) also have legislation requiring citizens to use their passport to enter/leave, although obviously this is hard to enforce.
Obviously there are cases where you can get away with this in practice, eg. your US/Denmark scenario. But what if, for example, one of you gets sick and you all have to stay in Denmark for over 90 days? Immigration’s records will now indicate that the holder of that passport, an American citizen, has illegally overstayed, and you’ll have a mess on your hands that you will need to sort out when you leave or next re-enter the country on that passport. Now, since your children are actually Danish citizens, I’m fairly sure this can be sorted out… but if you had just used a Danish passport to enter, you wouldn’t have the problem in the first place.
And yes, your US immigration officer is full of poop. You do have to use a US passport to enter the US, so your friend was wrong in using his other passport for this, but what passport you choose to use outside the US is none of his business.
Update: Reworded to use slightly less loaded language per the comments.
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