passport stamps?

With the advent of the Schengen Treaty Zone, there are no immigration authorities at the national borders within the zone. Since only immigration officers are permitted to enter stamps on your passport, you just get one when you enter and one when you leave. Any other persons entering stamps in your passport could be interpreted as defacement and invalidate the passport. The US no longer stamps my passport when I return. As more people get passports with chips, passport stamps may become a thing of the past. Now they scan your passport on entry, and scan it again when you leave, so their computer records this data and knows if you are overstaying the implied 90 day visa.

If you want a stamp, just ask. I have never been declined.

When I return at SFO, I've noticed in the last few years the chances of getting stamped is about 60-40 of getting a stamp. Since I want a stamp upon return, I ask for that. They oblige.... some happily, with some you get the feeling your request is an imposition.

Well, I was hoping a post office or city hall would be allowed or something.

Read page 5 of your passport, "Important Information Regarding Your Passport". Read the last paragraph. "Alteration or Mutilation of Passport".

The stamps mark when you entered the Schengen zone, and there needs to be a corresponding dated stamp when you leave. So no, you can't get passport stamps just as a souvenir.

Hi,

Are you going to England? If so, you get a stamp upon entering and another at departure, the same for the Schengen zone. When you fly back, if it's not done automatically by Immigration, just ask. The result is after the trip to the UK and Schengen areas plus the US return stamp, you've collected 5. With Schengen in effect you can count on their stamping you in and out. Prior to Schengen, I asked for a stamp in Frankfurt, sometimes they obliged, other times they ignored you.

I haven't read the paragraph yet, but I dont see why its not an option really,much less counterfeiting sometime barely eligible they did as a matter of course to just recently. I know others who feel as I and think of it as souvenir or sorts.

And we fly into Munich, on to the CR, Austria and out of Hungary.

"I haven't read the paragraph yet, but I dont see why its not an option really,much less counterfeiting sometime barely eligible they did as a matter of course to just recently. I know others who feel as I and think of it as souvenir or sorts."

Let me explain again... the passport stamp is a legal marker to designate when you enter the Schengen Zone. This starts the clock ticking on your 90 day visa-free allotment of travel days. The next stamp marks your exit date. That's the raison d'etre of the stamps, to check how long you have stayed in the Schengen Zone. Adding extra stamps that don't signify an entrance or exit of the Schengen Zone would invalidate the whole purpose of the stamps in the first place.

Prior to Schengen upon entering, say flying from the US to Paris or Frankfurt, (this I know because I did this in the '70s and '80s), your passport was checked at Immigration. Most of the time it wasn't stamped, even if you asked for it, they ignored you. But not in the UK, entering the UK by ferry or plane, at Border Control, your passport was stamped as it was at departure from the UK, say you were taking the ferry from England to France...Calais, Boulogne, etc.

With Schengen in effect, upon entry it's stamped to show the start of the 90 days. I see that as a souvenir too apart from the officialdom aspect. After 2007 no country stamps when crossing back and forth, say from Germany to CR or to Poland, or from Austria to Hungary. My last trip to Budapest in May 2014 from Vienna the Hungarian train controllers did not even ask for foreigners to show the passport, only the ticket. Instead the Hungarians had to show their passport, yes, it is discrimination. Four years earlier in 2010 on the same route the Hungarian controller just checked it (along with the ticket) but no passport stamp was given.

We had the weirdest thing happen on our last trip to Italy, though. We walked off the plane, collected our luggage and walked right out of Fiumicino with no checks at all. We had our passports out and ready but were waved through; they didn't even look at them.

This was a flight from Mpls to Chicago and then direct to Rome so Fiumicino was our first point of entry into the Schengen. We looked at each other and wondered if we'd be in big trouble when we tried to leave Italy 3 weeks later with no record (other than our flight paperwork) of when we'd entered it.