Using two passports (merged)

[mugs 0]

Can one use a Chinese passport to leave China and travel to Singapore, then use a U.S. passport to travel onward to the U.S?

 

I know that the U.S. CBP doesn't care whether you have a Chinese passport and /or what you did with it, just as long as you have a U.S. passport when you enter.

 

Can one do this or will Singapore ICA raise a fuss?

 

[Dashinka 24,598]

Not really certain about Singapore, but my wife regularly travels with two passports.  We buy her tickets in the name on her US Passport, and she enters and leaves Russia using her Russian passport.  The only issue she had was one time at exit passport control, the Russian Border Services gave her a little bit of a hard time, but eventually she was passed.  She never had any issues in other countries such as South Korea or China when entering (for transit purposes) with her US Passport.

[mugs 0]

Thanks for the info!

 

This brings up other possible interim places to go to first like Thailand or Macau. The same question; do they check or care about your passport.

 

I think this has only come up because the additional Covid-19 applications, testing, quarantine etc. has introduced all kinds of other paperwork into the process.

[Ksenia_O 696]

2 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Not really certain about Singapore, but my wife regularly travels with two passports.  We buy her tickets in the name on her US Passport, and she enters and leaves Russia using her Russian passport.  The only issue she had was one time at exit passport control, the Russian Border Services gave her a little bit of a hard time, but eventually she was passed.  She never had any issues in other countries such as South Korea or China when entering (for transit purposes) with her US Passport.

Same here - I leave and enter the US, using my US passport. 

Outside of the US -  whatever benefits  me the most.

 

I see this all the time, before landing or during layover -  people with few passport books in hands...trying to figure out which one to use next  

But of course, it  works the best only if you have the same name in all passports.

[mugs 0]

This is for my wife, a U.S. citizen traveling from China. She's worried about showing her U.S. passport when leaving because she says they might try to cancel her Hukou (local city residency status) and health insurance from the job she's retired from.

 

She had heard about people going to South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Macao etc. with a Chinese passport and then leaving from one of those places with a U.S. passport.

 

The problem is this time there's all this paperwork because of Covid and you have to put down your passport # so when you leave one of these places we thought they might check and see that passports don't match. So I wondered if anyone had trouble lately.

 

Thanks again!

[EternalForeigner 57]

If you and your wife are dual Chinese-American passport holders, you'll have to be very careful with which passports you use. I can't say I know about this first-hand, but I've heard that sometimes exit immigration in China might check the passports of Chinese citizens who are leaving to see if they have visas for their destination as a covert way of finding out if there's a second passport. Perhaps you'd know if there's high scrutiny on that front.

 

As a general rule, you enter and exit the country on the passport you have for that country (e.g. leaving China and going through Chinese immigration with a Chinese passport).

 

The airlines themselves don't care about which passport you use as long as you show them the passport that allows you into your destination. Also, it's highly possible that China demands APIS (advanced passenger info) from the airlines on a ticket where the final destination is in China. So there are a couple of ways to go about this:

 

Book a roundtrip ticket to China, with or without connections, either way, use the name on the Chinese passport (this works best if the names on both American and Chinese passports are identical), and only show the airlines the Chinese passport when checking in so the Chinese authorities will only get info from that passport. Go through TSA with the Chinese passport, too. Just use the passport all the way until you get into China. In the reverse journey, when checking in for your flight to come back to the US, you have to show the airlines your Chinese passport (to match the name on the ticket) and the US passport to show you can enter the US. When going through Chinese immigration, only show the Chinese one. Then if you connect in Singapore or any other country that's visa-free for Chinese passports, use your US passport all the way, that's fine. The reservations I have with this plan is that I don't know if Chinese immigration will ask about the final destination (the US) and ask to see a visa or stamps, of if they're only concerned with the next destination (Singapore, Malaysia, etc.). Going to a visa-exempt country for Chinese and US passports to layover is your best bet.

 

If you want to play it much safer, buy separate tickets while making the same arrangements. If your wife is already in China and she has no tickets, she could book one ticket from China to Singapore using the name on the Chinese passport and use that passport, then buy another ticket with the American passport name to fly from Singapore to the US. I haven't dealt with immigration in Singapore or if during a transit they'll ask about a visa for the next country (the US), but they won't care if you present a US passport to show them you can enter the US. If she's not in China yet but wants to go there, she needs to make sure that the Singapore-China ticket is in her Chinese passport name, and when checking in for the flight from Singapore to China, she should only show the airline her Chinese passport and continue to use it until she enters China.

 

I know this is a lot of info and can be confusing, so please let me know if anything needs clarifying. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by EternalForeigner

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

18 hours ago, mugs said:

Thanks for the info!

 

This brings up other possible interim places to go to first like Thailand or Macau. The same question; do they check or care about your passport.

 

 

You need to ask those places. US only cares about itself. Maybe ask in the regional forums not here in the US focused one?

[mugs 0]

8 hours ago, EternalForeigner said:

 If your wife is already in China and she has no tickets, she could book one ticket from China to Singapore using the name on the Chinese passport and use that passport, then buy another ticket with the American passport name to fly from Singapore to the US. I haven't dealt with immigration in Singapore or if during a transit they'll ask about a visa for the next country (the US), but they won't care if you present a US passport to show them you can enter the US.

Thanks. Yes, this part is her situation. The problem is that when filling out the information for the "Air Travel Pass" which is the Singapore entry permit (not the Singapore visa) it requires your passport info which would be her Chinese one because she shows that paperwork to Chinese customs as she is leaving China to go to Singapore. That part is ok.

 

The problem is that when leaving Singapore, she would show her U.S. passport to travel onward to the U.S. Would Singapore have a problem with that (?) saying, "Hey, this is not how you came in here. This passport info doesn't match." or like the U.S. maybe they don't care which passports one uses, as long as they are valid.

[EternalForeigner 57]

9 minutes ago, mugs said:

Thanks. Yes, this part is her situation. The problem is that when filling out the information for the "Air Travel Pass" which is the Singapore entry permit (not the Singapore visa) it requires your passport info which would be her Chinese one because she shows that paperwork to Chinese customs as she is leaving China to go to Singapore. That part is ok.

 

The problem is that when leaving Singapore, she would show her U.S. passport to travel onward to the U.S. Would Singapore have a problem with that (?) saying, "Hey, this is not how you came in here. This passport info doesn't match." or like the U.S. maybe they don't care which passports one uses, as long as they are valid.

She should show her Chinese passport, the one she entered Singapore with and the one containing the info they want. I don’t know if she’s spending the night in Singapore or just transiting/laying over, but If Singapore’s immigration don’t ask her for proof that she can enter the US, then she can go to her flight immediately after showing them her Chinese passport. If they do ask her for proof she can enter the US, she should show them her US passport and they ought to let her go to her flight. The airlines will be the ones primarily asking for proof of entry to the US, not the governments usually. But again, I don’t know how things work in Singapore exactly. And I don’t know which stamp they’ll put on her passport (entry/exit, if they stamp at all). If they don’t stamp a passport for eVisas, or if they don’t stamp passports for passengers who are only laying over/connecting, then it should be safe for her to do. My only concern with the stamp is that if she returns to China, I don’t know if Chinese immigration will scrutinize any entry stamps since she presumably they’ll think she will have been in Singapore the whole time. 

Edited August 10, 2021 by EternalForeigner

[mugs 0]

Can one use a Chinese passport to leave China and travel to Singapore (or another country), then use a U.S. passport to travel onward to the U.S?

 

I know that the U.S. CBP doesn't care whether you have a Chinese passport and /or what you did with it, just as long as you have a U.S. passport when you enter.

 

Can one do this in Singapore or other countries or do they raise a fuss?

 

This is for my wife, a U.S. citizen traveling from China. She's worried about showing her U.S. passport when leaving because she says they might try to cancel her Hukou (local city residency status) and health insurance from the job she's retired from.

 

She had heard about people going to South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Singapore, Macao etc. with a Chinese passport and then leaving from one of those places with a U.S. passport.

 

The problem is that this time there's all this extra paperwork because of COVID-19. She would use her Chinese passport and info when entering one of these countries. But then, when she leaves one of these places (using her U.S. passport) we thought they might check and balk when they see that the passport info doesn't match.

 

So I wondered if anyone had trouble lately or which country might be the best as an interim travel stop?

 

Thanks!

[El Escocés 217]

With our dual national kids, we have entered countries using one passport and handed over both passports when departing for the US. Never any issues. Why did we not use the US passports for entry; some countries want an advanced visa (in this particular case it was $160 cash per US passport) as opposed to free from fees for their UK passport. 

[Mike E 11,741]

Works fine if she has two separate flight tickets:

 

China to Singapore 

 

Singapore to USA

 

and her Chinese passport/visa  lets her enter Singapore.  
 

When I had a multi entry visa for India on my Canadian passport, I booked a round trip between USA and Hong Kong and a second round trip between Hong Kong and India.  The only ongoing travel was same day.  This plan didn’t require me go through HK immigration and I just got a boarding pass for my India flight at the transfer desk in the internal transit area of the airport.
 

But if I had to enter Hong Kong, I would have done so on my Canadian passport. 

 

Just did the converse on the return.  

[bing10 114]

4 hours ago, El Escocés said:

With our dual national kids, we have entered countries using one passport and handed over both passports when departing for the US. Never any issues. Why did we not use the US passports for entry; some countries want an advanced visa (in this particular case it was $160 cash per US passport) as opposed to free from fees for their UK passport. 

 

Both the UK and US have no problem with dual-citizenship, so it's never a problem when traveling with those passports. The OP is asking because they need to conceal the fact that they have a US  passport from the Chinese.

[SusieQQQ 11,586]

14 minutes ago, bing10 said:

 

Both the UK and US have no problem with dual-citizenship, so it's never a problem when traveling with those passports. The OP is asking because they need to conceal the fact that they have a US  passport from the Chinese.

Then OP should be asking in East Asian regional forum for specifics about China and Singapore.

[Ontarkie 14,280]

~~Moved to the Regional forum as the OP is asking about China~~