Dual citizen carrying two passports?

Question

When travelling from the US to South Africa for a dual citizen (US/South African), it seems that South Africa is now requiring you to show your South African passport upon entry, not your American (http://www.southafrica-newyork.net/homeaffairs/dualcitinfo.htm) However, you have to enter and leave the US on your American passport. I also thought that it was illegal to travel with more than one passport.

Is it possible to leave the US on a US passport, enter and leave SA on a SA passport and then re-enter the US on a US passport?

Answer 1

Yes. The US has no say in what passport you use to enter a foreign country, but you must use a US Passport to enter the US if you have one.

This does lead to the potential of there being no record in your US Passport of where you have been, but the airline will capture this information when you travel out (at least to the destination of the flight).

Answer 2

There's no problem about that, and it is not illegal to have more than a passport, my wife is a U.S. citizen and I gave her spanish citizenship so now she has 2 passports and she has never had a problem with that.

what my wife does, is that when she goes to the airport to check in, she shows her US passport and then at the time we arrive in Spain, she shows the spanish passport, I would say it's the same thing with USA and South Africa.

Answer 3

I'm not familiar with the law of South African but I can tell you from my own experience.

My son have a dual citizenships of American and Indonesian (Indonesian government just passed the law last year) and we've been travelling with his two passports with no problems at all.

When you leave the States you show them your US passport and when you return you do the same thing. But when you enter South Africa you suppose to show them your South African passport and the same thing when you leave.

I did this with my son and it's been smooth so far.

Good luck!