Departure Card - Integration With Arrival Card

Integration With Arrival Card

Depending on the jurisdiction, aliens will be issued a card that both has an arrival and departure portion where both share a common serial/control number to facilitate identification. The alien is usually required to retain the latter in his passport and use that same card to exit the country. Some jurisdictions that have this system are Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, USA, Brazil and Thailand. Hong Kong and Macau have the departure portion as a carbon copy of the landing card but the flight number, next destination and signature are left blank while the latter 6 have a shorter portion for departure cards which require fewer information, but they are joined together as with other to enable immigration officers to tear off one portion as with most ASEAN Nations.

For a short time between 2009 and 2010, the Philippines also had a card with portions pertaining to arrival and departure. All passengers, regardless of nationality are required to fill-out the arrival portion and aliens were required to retain the departure portion. Filipino citizens on the other hand would fill-out a separate departure card on their next flight leaving the Philippines. Later in 2011, the Bureau of Immigration reverted to the older cards.

In the United States, the most common example of this is the Form I-94 where the alien, once admitted in the US must retain the departure portion of I-94 card at all times during his stay (passport control officers usually staple this portion to the passport). For air travels, the US is one of the few countries that doesn't have a formal passport control for departing passengers. Hence, once he leaves the US for good, he returns the card through the staff at his departing carrier's check-in counter at the airport (if leaving by air) or to border officers (if leaving by land).