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Declaring past travel when your passport is missing entry/exit stamps for some countries

Canada • Express Entry • immigration 0 views
By VisaBuddies Communityvia community — compiled from public visa forums

Documents Needed

  • Letter of Explanation (LOE)

    Use this to explain any gaps between passport stamps and your actual travel dates/countries.

Step-by-Step

Applicants filling out the travel history section of an Express Entry or PR application sometimes only have entry/exit stamps for some of the countries they visited on a single trip (e.g. a multi-city Europe trip), and aren't sure how to declare the countries with no stamp.

What group members advised:
  1. Declare every country you actually traveled to, with dates, regardless of whether it has a stamp. Many countries — especially within open border zones like Europe — don't stamp passports at every crossing, so a missing stamp doesn't mean you skip declaring that country.

  2. You're still considered to have been in that country even without a stamp, since border-free travel between certain countries doesn't leave a paper trail. If you're worried about the mismatch, add a Letter of Explanation noting that your passport wasn't stamped at every stop, along with the dates for each country you visited.


The key principle: your declared travel history should reflect where you actually went, not just what's stamped in your passport — use an LOE to bridge any gap.

Dos, Don'ts & Tips

  • Do: Declare all countries you traveled to with accurate dates, even if some have no passport stamp.
  • Tip: Border-free zones (like parts of Europe) often don't stamp passports at every crossing — this is normal and expected.
  • Do: Add a Letter of Explanation if your stamps don't fully match your declared travel, to avoid confusion during review.

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