Why I applied for a second U.S. passport

A little-known fact is that U.S. citizens can in fact hold two valid U.S. passports simultaneously. (To emphasize: this is not dual citizenship—they are both U.S. passports.)

U.S. citizens are usually not permitted to have more than one passport. However, the State Department has the legal authority to make exceptions. Generally, they are pretty accommodating, as long as you have a valid reason.

The second U.S. passport will generally only be issued for four years rather than the full 10-year validity of the primary U.S. passport.

Valid reasons

There are generally three valid reasons:

• You need to travel at the same time you are getting a visa for another country
• You need to get multiple visas at the same time
• You’re trying to visit countries that may deny you entry based on your previous visits/connections to an adversarial country
  • Examples of adversarial relations that may impact your travels:
    • Armenia and Azerbaijan
    • Israel and many countries in the Middle East
    • China and India
    • China and Turkey

The State Department will deny applications for second passports if the given reason is “just because I want one”. In addition, “I want a backup passport in case my main one gets stolen” is also unacceptable, because that would increase the supply of passports that could be stolen to make forgeries.

How to apply

If you can send in your existing passport, you can fill out form DS-82 as if this were a renewal. Otherwise, if you can’t send in your existing passport, you’ll need to fill out form DS-11 and submit documents like your birth certificate.

Be sure if you are sending in a DS-82 that it’s marked clearly as a second passport application so you don’t end up with a brand new 10-year passport and a prematurely canceled passport.

I applied with the DS-82 route through the Seattle Passport Agency. I gave them my passport for one night and they had the new one printed the next morning.

Why did I get one?

My situation was a combination of two reasons.

First, when visiting countries that do not have good relations with China, I don’t want to draw attention to the fact that I have a Chinese visa and have visited China. In my case, those countries include India and Turkey.

Since 2020, the Indian government has suspended issuing Indian visas to almost all Chinese citizens due to the Himalayan border skirmish. I was born a U.S. citizen and I don’t hold any other nationalities, but being linked to China resulted in my Indian e-visa application being scrutinized much more than those of other nationalities.

As for Turkey, that conflict relates to the situations regarding Uyghurs in Xinjiang. If a Chinese border guard sees a Turkey entry stamp, they will wonder what that person has been doing in Turkey and if they are related to any separatist movements happening within China’s internal borders.

While I understand that governments wish to ensure safety within their borders, I am ultimately just a traveler who wants to respectfully tour different countries, so I want to facilitate that as easily as possible.

Second, I will be applying for visas while I am out of the country. Therefore, it’s paramount that I have one passport in tow while the other is at the consulate having its visa processed.

Extra considerations

Now that I have two passports, I will need to make sure:

• I provide the correct passport number to the airline;
• I update my CBP Trusted Traveler portal with the passport I am traveling with back to the U.S.; and
• I bring the correct passport with me and leave the other one behind. (Just because you present one passport doesn’t mean they won’t perform a secondary search and discover your other passport. In addition, some foreign border officers will unfortunately mistakenly believe you are committing fraud by having multiple U.S. passports.)

I recommend that every U.S. citizen who travels frequently or to countries with geopolitical conflicts to consider obtaining a second U.S. passport. Just keep in mind you have to justify your application with substantiated reasons, such as the ones listed above.