What happens if I pass passport control and I cancel my flight?

Question

I was wondering what will happen if I pass the passport control checkpoint, and they stamp on my passport that I'm leaving that country, and then I decide to cancel my flight and not travel. Will they stamp again the entry since I have the visa or what will happen?

Country of citizenship: Morroco

Country that I'm visiting: France

Visa: Student

Answer 1

Will they stamp again the entry since I have the visa or what will happen?

Yes, any country with exit passport control will initially stamp you out but if you do not take that flight for whatever reason after that, they will stamp you back in. And that does not cause your visa to be considered as used even if you had a single entry one, because you never reached the port of entry to apply for admission.

Depending upon your country, they will most probably cancel the existing exit stamp instead of giving you a new Entry but that's not something universal.

However if you were in a foreign country and your visa was expiring this could cause some serious issues. And you can’t just go tell them that I changed my mind on the gate now I will leave after x days. You’ll need to have a really good reason to be let back in right from there

Answer 2

While a slightly different situation, I once went through immigration for the Eurostar in Brussels, where both Belgian exit checks, and UK Entry checks, are carried out (so, two stamps). Then, all trains were cancelled. I went back through the immigration, and got the stamps crossed out by the immigration officers (two lines put through the corners).

I am not sure how this would change if there were other visa issues to consider.

I am also not sure what the difference would be if I had voluntarily chosen to leave, rather than being forced to when all the trains were cancelled. But at least there does seem to be a mechanism to readmit people who passed immigration already.