A passport stamp is a rubber stamp inked impression received in one's passport upon entering or exiting a country. Passport stamps may occasionally take the form of sticker stamps, such as those from Japan. Depending on nationality, a visitor may not receive a stamp (unless specifically requested), such as an EU citizen traveling to another EU country. Most countries issue exit stamps in addition to entry stamps. A few countries only issue entry stamps, including Canada, United States, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Hong Kong does not issue both entry and exit stamps, issues landing slips instead. Japan does not issue entry stamp, but entry sticker intead, and issue exit stamp. Visas may also take the form of passport stamps.
Famous quotes containing the words passport and/or stamp:
“Whenever [Leonard Bernstein] entered or exited a country he would fill in on his passport form not composer or conductor, but musician. Of course people in the press spent a lot of Lenny’s life telling him what he should have done; he should have been a concert pianist, he should have composed more.... And people wouldn’t let him live his own life. But he created his own career, in his own image.”
—John Mauceri (b. 1945)
“If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)