Forgot old passport with schengen/student visa

Question

I am a Japanese full-time student in the UK now on a trip to Paris.

I have two passports: one new and valid, one old and void. However, my student visa/Schengen visa is in the old passport, which I forgot at home in the UK. What is worse, I lost my debit card one day before the trip and so, I only have money in cash.

Now, I used the Eurostar to get from London to Paris. Surprisingly, I was not asked for my Schengen/student visa in my old passport throughout: my new passport did the job and I got to Paris without any issues. And so now I'm in Paris.

My worry is when I leave Paris to go to London, will I be in trouble? I asked the UK border personnel in London before my departure to Paris, explained to them, to which they replied "on our side, it won't be an issue since we can look you up on the system and confirm. But we don't know what the policies are with the French with a Japanese passport."

Now, I fortunately have black-white copies of my old passport's ID page and the visa in it as a PDF file on my laptop.

So my question is, will I be troubled upon leaving Paris with the Eurostar? I got in without problems so I'm hoping it won't be problematic leaving either. Even if I'm troubled, will my PDF copy help to the point that I can get through immigration? If extra money/cost is involved, I am helpless since I don't have any credit/debit card now. The new replacement debit card is probably waiting to be activated, in my house in the UK.

Will this be a big problem? I have my student ID if that helps to prove I'm a student.

Answer 1

Japanese citizens do not need a visa to enter the Schengen area as long as their stay does not exceed 90 days. This is why you had no problem entering France since your tourist stay was shorter than 90 days.

When exiting France, the only thing the officers will be interested in is whether you overstayed your visa or 90 days or whether there are some other reasons why they should not let you travel. Since your stay in France is a short one and assuming all else is well, there is no reason why French border control should not let you exit France.

When entering the UK, you will again run through a passport control. This is where it has the potential to get difficult, because they will want to know that you are not overstaying or anything. The Home Office of the UK writes in their Immigration Rules:

11. A person must, on arrival in the United Kingdom or when seeking entry through the Channel Tunnel, produce on request by the Immigration Officer:

(i) a valid national passport or other document satisfactorily establishing his identity and nationality; and
(ii) such information as may be required to establish whether he requires leave to enter the United Kingdom and, if so, whether and on what terms leave to enter should be given.

Note that it does not explicitly say produce the visa on request. I think that if you show your passport, your (valid) student ID and a paper (!) copy of your visa from the void passport, stating that you forgot that in your UK home, that should give the immigration officer enough information to decide that you should be allowed in. That the border personnel said they ‘have you in their system’ when you left is further reassurance.

Caveat for this answer: I am not a lawyer.

Answer 2

To put it quite simply:

1. As you do not need a visa for a short stay tourist visit to the Schengen area, you do not need a visa to exit the area as well. The most that will happen is that you will get two stamps on your passport, one for entry and another for exit.

2. Upon arrival at UK, you will have to produce evidence that you are a entitled to enter the UK and that you are not in violation of your visa status (and thus, not entitled to enter the UK for the purposes of the visa). For that, you will need to provide some proof of your status - which you can provide in terms of the photocopy of your passport. I would try to find a place in Paris where I could print that PDF which has your visa proof.

However, as stated by the immigration officer you are already in their system so I am sure they can look up your passport reference and find out if you are still eligible for entry.

Save for a short wait at the UK immigration counter on your return, I don't foresee any troubles.