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I removed a visa sticker from my passport. Is my passport considered damaged?

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Rory Alsop
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Obaida Rehman
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    Denied entry to where? – Traveller Oct 10 '22 at 06:41
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    On a related note, why did you do that? – Anish Sheela Oct 10 '22 at 08:33
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    Travelling to Bangaladesh? Even with some pushback, you will be allowed entry by border control, as its a right to enter your own country. – Anish Sheela Oct 10 '22 at 08:34
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    The first answer on that question, is another reminder to never ever do such things – Nicolas Formichella Oct 10 '22 at 08:58
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    Who will know? I don’t see anything – Augustine of Hippo Oct 10 '22 at 09:45
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    @AugustineofHippo Compare the 2 circular red/white/yellow marks at the bottom of each page. The one on the left is clearly different. It looks to me that the visa removal lifted the surface coating of the page and revealed the white interior of the sheet. Also look at the horizontal line at the top of the page where it says VISAS. That line is incomplete, also indicating page damage. – Peter M Oct 10 '22 at 12:45
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    @AugustineofHippo all the white areas on the left page appear to be places where the top layer of material was torn away. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight Oct 10 '22 at 14:14
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    why did you remove the sticker? Generally removing anything official from your passport (including visa stickers) seems like a very bad idea – Tristan Oct 10 '22 at 14:16
  • I flagged this as in need of details. While it's safe to answer yes, your passport is invalid, we would need to know your nationality and your destination to answer with certainity whether it will be considered as such at entry. – Neinstein Oct 11 '22 at 12:16
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    Legality aside, you can push your luck. My passport was kind of damaged because of improper care. Then I super glued it instead of replacing it. Nobody complains anymore now. – CodePanda Oct 11 '22 at 12:21
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    @CodePanda Wear and tear due to regular use is expected and usually not an issue. But this is a willful damage. Tearing up a visa will be considered a serious thing. They should have a solid explanation on why. – Anish Sheela Oct 12 '22 at 08:18
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    @AnishSheela Yes. It's a serious thing. But most likely no one is going to check every single page. That's why I said "push your luck". When I am at border control, I tell them the page number which has my visa. So far, they always skip checking page-by-page and jump to particular page instead. – CodePanda Oct 16 '22 at 20:23

3 Answers3

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Your passport has been damaged, by the standards set by the Bangladesh government:

Any willful damage to passport or unauthorized changes/corrections on a passport will render it invalid.

Removing a visa sticker is obviously an "unauthorized change", and therefore your passport is now invalid.

Greg Hewgill
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Yes. This passport is considered damaged, as you messed with the pages. You have to get a new passport, claiming it as damaged. You will be denied entry (except in Bangladesh). Or, may get a lengthy interrogation on why you did that (can happen when you try to enter or leave Bangaladesh). Safest option is to just replace the passport, before leaving the country.

Let me elaborate. Your country's official notices a visa being torn up. What are you trying to hide? Did you visit Syria and joined ISIS? Or did you visit Israel for a business meeting? Usually a person not wanting to have a record of visiting a country means a very suspicious thing, as border agents are concerned.

Ok, let's consider the case where you are applying for a visa. The officer will definitely see this page and will conclude that you are trying to hide something and will deny your visa automatically, as you are deemed risky. See the linked question for an actual case.

Personally, some of my entry seals were damaged in my old passport due to water damage from rain. I had great difficulty convincing immigration official to leave the country, even though it was clearly evident that it was an accident. I replaced the passport before the next trip.

Tim
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Anish Sheela
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    While I agree with your last sentence, you seem to be very sure of your answer yet haven't given any sources for your information. Have you got any sources to say that they "will be denied entry" and that the passport "is considered damaged"? – Midavalo Oct 10 '22 at 18:15
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    I don't feel like that statement needs support @midalvo. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Oct 11 '22 at 01:42
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    @Midavalo Passports are official documents of the goverment that issued it. In most cases it also belongs to that goverment (often stated directly somewhere in the passport). The visa pages are reserved for official use. Most countries have laws that official documents that have been tampered with or badly damaged are invalid. The same for the willfull damage of property that doesn't belong to you. Quoting the sources for such fundamentals is not required (Ignorantia juris non excusat - Wikipedia). – Mark Johnson Oct 11 '22 at 05:46
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    Just elaborated a bit more. Israel case was mentioned as Bangladesh specifically mentions its passport is not valid for Israel. – Anish Sheela Oct 11 '22 at 09:49
  • Not sure how their visas work for those who need them, but Israel specifically uses little strips of paper that you keep with, but not affixed to your passport while in Israel for entry/exit records instead of stamps precisely because of the problems they know travelers can face entering certain countries after visiting Israel. – reirab Oct 12 '22 at 17:11
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    @MarkJohnson, That maxim only means that not knowing the law doesn't excuse not obeying it -- it doesn't mean that one would magically get that knowledge automatically, without learning it from somewhere; or that unsourced claims on the internet would automatically become trustworthy just because someone drops a latin quote. Or in other words, even if it's obvious and fundamental to you, it doesn't mean it's obvious to everyone else. – ilkkachu Oct 12 '22 at 19:24
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    Also, border agents and the like are typically the only people looking at your passport, therefore tearing out a visa seems like an attempt to hide something from them specifically, which makes it a lot more suspicious than, for example, an encrypted hard drive (for which the people you're trying to protect/hide your data from typically aren't border agents). – NotThatGuy Oct 13 '22 at 13:53
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On whether your passport is considered damaged: in theory, yes

Whether you will be denied entry: really depends. I had a BD passport with missing pages. A couple of countries created 0 problems. After going all around the world, it was the BD immigration which saw the detached pages and denied me my flight. As it happened, that was the only time I kept the pages in my passport.

After days of trying to work with the useless Bangladesh Passports, I just booked a flight and superglued the pages.

Funny how $2 could have saved me thousands of $$$. So yeah, most likely there'll be a problem if the detached sticker is provided with the passport. You could consider gluing it back.

Now, if you're applying for a visa through the embassy of the countries which issued that sticker, good luck.

Melus
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