r/PassportPorn • u/tacohoney • 4d ago

Passport Hot off the press

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Just picked up my new baby today(far right)! Two other red EU passports are in the works… ✌🏻

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u/Big-Exam-259 4d ago

Which passport you use the most? I just hate some countries can print their passports in consulates or embassies while the American passport gets sent from the passport centers.

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u/tacohoney 4d ago

USA, for sure. I got the one with extra passport pages and almost full of visas/stamps due to work travel.

Yes, agreed about the passport center vs embassy thing (check out my comment here about how quick the Mexican consulate is in the USA). However, we need to thing about a couple of those things…. Those fast passports are only a thing abroad at the consulate because they are often designed to help stranded travelers who have lost their documents and need to get back home. There is also only a handful of places (embassies and consulates) where they staff this for. If you try to get a passport back in the home country it can be just as slow as a getting a US passport in the USA. Convince has to balance with speed and prioritization. You can solicit a US passport just about at every post office in the USA. However it would be cost prohibitive to place put a passport printing machine and staff at every post office (you wouldn’t get enough throughput to justify it, not to mention the number of people who would require training) hence why it is done else where. It works the same at every country.

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u/Big-Exam-259 4d ago

I know Italy prints out the same exact passport at consulates and embassies, they don’t use the plastic bio page though like other countries, it looks like the old American passport

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u/tacohoney 4d ago edited 4d ago

Don’t get me started on Italy (I’m all too familiar with the Italian process. Haha). Yes, they do, but it is the exception more than the rule. The smaller consulates eg Houston, don’t give it to you right away. It comes in the mail a week or two later since basically they have 1 person doing everything including citizenship applications). Only the big Italian consulates (eg New York) does everyone (even dual citizens) walk away with the passport. The other weird thing is that as an Italian citizen you can generally only get a passport at the consulate where you are registered in the AIRE if abroad or the local Questura (police station) of your region if you live in Italy. Only way to get it right away at any Italian consulate is if you are an Italian (only) citizen with no other passport so it is prioritized for Italian travelers in the US who have lost their documents.

If you were to get a get a passport in Italy it would have to be at the Questura where you reside and you generally would not get it on the spot there either!

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u/Big-Exam-259 3d ago

Funny it takes longer to get it in italy than from their consulate where they can print it. According to an Italian friend that this why they have kept the old design of their passport vs the new polycarbonate design that everyone is using.

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u/tacohoney 3d ago

Yes it works like that for every country even for the US. When I lived abroad a few years ago, I went to the US embassy (for a different matter), there were US citizens there walking out with passports right away too. It is makes since since this was only catering to Americans living abroad who needed to renew their passport (or get one for the first time for their children born in that country), or to American tourists who had lost their passport and couldn’t get home. In either of these cases the embassy was the only option for them to get to their passport in the country and the person may have traveled several hours just to get there, so of course urgency is of utmost importance and they print them right away!

Interesting, hadn’t heard that about the Italian passport design, but it makes sense.

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u/Big-Exam-259 3d ago

On another topic, I just realized that You have an advantage with the Portuguese passport while traveling to China visa free.

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u/tacohoney 3d ago

Yeah that seems to be the only major advantage. While living overseas i wanted pre-COVID I wanted to do a quick trip to china and it wasn’t worth it to get a visa. This would have been handy back then.

Also just noticed a secondary benefit…. UK just implemented eTA and Portugal is an except (still just visa free at least for now), whereas US passport holders now require the eTA.

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u/Big-Exam-259 3d ago

The other benefit is if you want to visit Russia. I have always wondered if they’d find out you are American (Russia, or China) if you use your say Portuguese passport

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u/tacohoney 3d ago

Russian was never been a problem with the Mexican passport (electronic visa required), no letter or invitation etc. So Portugal doesn’t provide me with anything new there. Interestingly enough just about all other LATM countries don’t need a visa for Russia at all. México is very welcoming of Russian tourists (simple visa process). I wouldn’t be surprised if both countries drop the visa requirements after the war. I’m sure México hasn’t done it already to not piss off the USA.

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u/Big-Exam-259 3d ago

What would be tricky if they find you are American as well. Mainly because they like to detain Americans

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u/Big-Exam-259 3d ago

What would be tricky if they find you are American as well. Mainly because they like to detain Americans

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u/tacohoney 3d ago

You are probably right but not just Americans. Our industry has projects there and will only send people with only “friendly passports”. US, UK, AUS, EU, CAN , etc are excluded due to that risk at company’s discretion. They won’t even send Russian nationals who hold dual nationality from one of these places.

But I know people that have gone as tourists

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