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Comment by themaninthedark | Hacker News Reader

My children will have the same dilemma well.

What I have heard is that if you renounce your Japanese citizenship, you have to turn in your Japanese passport but if you tell Japan that you are renouncing your American citizenship there are no checks to see if it has been done...

I do not know how true it is and I would not recommend breaking the law.

There is also the matter of detection; Japan is very strict on watch entry and exit, any use of a non-Japanese passport would be noticed there but is there any way for them to see if you have a second passport beyond that?

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If you don't live in Japan, use your US passport to enter/exit Japan and only carry that passport with you. They might be able to see that you also have Japanese citizenship, but they won't be able to take your Japanese passport if you don't have it.

If you fly from the US to Japan and show a Japanese passport, your chances of getting caught are much higher - all they have to do is ask why you don't have a US visa stamp in your Japanese passport.

> If you fly from the US to Japan and show a Japanese passport, your chances of getting caught are much higher - all they have to do is ask why you don't have a US visa stamp in your Japanese passport.

In most countries, including the USA and and I assume Japan, it is illegal to enter or leave the country on another passport that is not that country's passport (assuming you have such a passport). So, I wouldn't risk this: you are changing what is a civil problem into a criminal problem.

> all they have to do is ask why you don't have a US visa stamp in your Japanese passport.

The USA stopped stamping passports of foreign nationals in 2022.

Regarding the passport: not that I am aware of. However, if there are no other entry/exit stamps in your Japanese passport they will know you are using another countries elsewhere.

I suppose you could get your Japanese passport stamped every time you left and came back, but then the timelines might be an issue. Also, whether or not the customs official even would.

I don't know if the US would stamp a Japanese passport for that reason, probably not because they would be like you entering the US twice and generate a bunch of visa stuff.

Now suppose you flew in and out of Canada every time, using your US passport to enter and Japanese to exit....

As long as your were diligent with keeping track of it, it would look like you were in Canada to the Japanese government.

Funny story, about keeping these things straight. Going back to Japan after travel with my infant son to Guam. Wife and my son go through the Japanese immigration while I have to go through the foreign nationals line, wife had accidentally handed my my son's passport. The look on the official's face as he stared at the baby photo was great, I told him "Sorry, I didn't shave so I look a little different."

Different topic, but I hope you enjoyed Guam. I lived there for several years and miss it quite a bit!

It and Japan were our top two locations for settling when I left the military, but life has a way of ignoring what you want and we ended up elsewhere for difficult reasons.

We did, it was only for a couple days for her brother's wedding during the winter so wasn't very crowded.

I lived in Japan for several years, love living there but don't like working there. I am back in the states on the east coast but I hope I can retire over there.

You just have to make sure you don't accidentally overstay your visa in Canada with either country since they probably check this by entry/exit dates on a specific passport.

> However, if there are no other entry/exit stamps in your Japanese passport they will know you are using another countries elsewhere.

If you only ever travel between the USA and Japan, they wouldn't know anything since the USA doesn't stamp your passport anyways.

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