Green Card Number as "Passport Number" on Rail Pass

I don't have an answer for you, but I do have a question: "Why do you think the DB representative would want to lie to you?" I think I would go ahead and follow what they said.

That is a very technical question that probably has never been asked before on this site. I assume they want confirmation of your US residency and the green card does that. Normally it would be a passport for US citizens. My guess is that you are fine given the information you received - but I am only guessing.

The reason why I suspect a DB agent can lie to me is that two years ago an SBB agent lied to me in Brunnen when selling me a "promotion ticket" to go to Zug (in Switzerland). When I got onto a train to go to Zug, the conductor told me the ticket was no longer valid because the promotion was no longer valid. I told the conductor that the SBB official staff sold me this ticket and told me there was a promotion. The conductor kicked me off the train and at the next available travel bureau the other SBB told me that indeed promotion was no longer valid and that the other SBB office had violated the law by selling me the promotion ticket.

So, official rail agents in Europe can lie to you.

I suspect they made a mistake issuing your card. The number on the card is so they can cross-check with your passport as ID and makes sure the correct person is using the card. But, as you say, a green card is not a passport, it has no validity outside the USA and definitely isn't legal ID in Germany. A German ticket inspector will probably never have seen one and may not even know what a "green card" is.
But, if the DB office says it is OK, you just have to hope.

Dear Chris - I suspected that they made a mistake. So, when I went to the DB Office in Frankfurt Flughafen, I did not just talk to the person at the "Schalter" - I requested to bring in the Chef. I requested to change the mistake, to switch my green card number to the passport number in the RailPass.The supervisor (I wrote down her name and so on) has explained to me that my passport number is not acceptable for the RailPass because it is from Europe, only Green Card is acceptable on the trains by the train ticket inspectors. So, if I were German citizen with a US green card, for example, they would only put Green Card not German Reisepass number on the "Passport Number" tab in the Rail Pass. She also said that most US federal (not state) government issued documents like US Army Card are also acceptable on the trains instead of passport. Weird, isn't it.

What she says may be the DB regulation indeed. But, as you mentioned it (and you are right), not every German ticket inspector knows what US Green Card is. I just don't want to get kicked off the train.

Dear All -

A quick update. It may be that indeed, DB agents did not lie to me. I have contacted the website that sells the GRP, germanrailpasses.com. I do not know how official they are, but we, in the USA mostly buy passes from them. So, this is what they wrote:

"Thank you for your email to the GermanRailPasses.com customer service team. That is indeed a good question. Typically we ask for your passport number. This passport number should match the number of the non European passport you are travelling with.

In your case as your proof of residency outside Europe is your USA green card then it should not be a problem that this number is printed on your pass as long as you can bring this along with you on your travels to show train conductors.

As you can see from our booking terms:

Proof of citizenship can be made with a passport or a valid ID card. An ID card in this case is classed as an ID document that can be used to cross borders.
Residence can be proved by using official government-issued residency papers. This must be a document that clearly shows that you are a resident of the country you live in. Documents such as bills, rental contracts or bank statements cannot be used. Working visas and/or travel visas can also not be used as proof of residency. The residency field of a passport can also not be used as proof of residence."

So what keeps a European citizen, who has a recent green card for the US, but is no longer living there, and is now a resident of Europe again, from using a German Rail or Eurail pass? A green card does not say where you reside now, it only gives (gave) you the right to work in the US.

Good question. According to US regulations, your Green Card is "flagged" after more than 6 months absence from the US and then after 1 year absence your Green Card is no longer valid and you have to apply for Re-Entry Permit. But how can DB/Eurail ticket agents check whether one has abandoned residence in the US and the Green Card is no longer valid? I can only assume that when you purchase the Eurail Pass online or at the DB/SNCF kiosk, they take your Green Card number and run it through USCIS database to check if you have abandoned residence in USA or not. But, may be they have no access to check the card number in the database. Who knows.

Another good question. Presumably the same applies to a European citizen resident in any non-European country, for example Japan. I have no idea what the Japanese equivalent of a permanent residents card is, but I suspect it is 100% in Japanese. Would a DB ticket inspector be able to tell a Japanese permanent residents card from any other Japanese document?

As highly intelligent as they are, I doubt many ticket agents or conductors would be able to distinguish Japanese Residence ID card from a Japanese library card. If I were a traveller in that position, I would obtain an official translation of the Japanese ID document into English/German and Apostille it. Then carry the ID with Apostille translation on the train.

I suspect you'll be fine with the U.S. green card listed on the ticket. You needed it to establish proof of residency outside of Europe, and the person checking the ticket would want to verify that the number on the ticket matches the number of the green card you provided, which in turn matches you, which therefore substantiates that the person traveling, you in this case, is resident outside of Europe. It doesn't hurt to double check, and to take the name/info of the person who said that you'd be ok with the green card, but since the green card is what verifies your residency outside of Europe, I suspect that's what they want to see.

Lee, DB wouldn't have a practical way of verifying whether the person with the green card is actually still resident in the United States. Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) cards are limited validity and have to be renewed every so often, so eventually the card would expire, but if the person didn't turn in the card when they left the U.S. and abandoned their residency, Deutsche Bahn wouldn't have a practical way of verifying it.

Gardner, USCIS isn't going to give DB access to their databases (can you imagine the privacy concerns!?!) so DB just has to take the LPR card at face value. I suppose, if they suspected fraud and wanted to involve the police, they could and then the police might be able to investigate the person's true residency status somehow. But, I have a hard time believing DB would waste its time and resources on that unless it's massive fraud. So, it's probably a loophole that a few people could exploit.

Chris and Gardner, a quick google image search for Japanese residence card does show that much of it is also in English.

The DB's explanation makes sense to me. As far as verifying where you've lived in the past 6 months (which is what counts), they can still check the European entry stamps on your passport, which you'll be carrying, even though it's not the primary ID they requested. That's the activating agent's responsibility to check. Conductors onboard are not likely to go into such detail unless they are suspicious of you.

Hello, all! This is a quick update on the use of Green Card for Rail Pass. There were no problems whatsoever in using Green Card instead of the passport for DB, and as I have heard - the same goes for US military ID. It was also interesting with using bank services in Germany: the German banks would rather accept US Green Card for ID than Ukrainian passport, Cyrillic letters on the passport cover must be throwing them off.