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I've been reading about this, and although similar questions have been asked, I got mixed signals, and often concerning situations slightly different to mine.

Essentially, if I will travel to the US and want to obtain a Visa or an ESTA, I am asked whether "I have ever been issued a passport by another country" and where.

In my case, I am applying as a citizen of country A, but I also hold a citizenship to country B. If put a no in that field, is it possible that the US could find out I actually have passport B through some online database or information-sharing scheme, and if so, could that lead to trouble?

I may prefer not to specify the second passport for various reasons, including that I don't have the passport on hand, or that I may want to keep the passports separate for situations like travelling to certain countries. For example, I heard there's a bit of trouble if you want to travel to both Iran and Israel in one lifetime, and to avoid that one could use different passports when travelling to each. This clearly wouldn't work if everyone knows you have two passports and can ask for the other one as well. Also, I haven't yet traveled to any of those places, this is more of a just in case consideration.

Also, what if countries A and B are for example in NATO/EU and have treaties and friendly relations with the US; does that increase the chance that the information has been shared?

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    Never lie on a official form. Probably they will not find out now (but I do not know), but maybe in future you will use the other one, and troubles will start. Assume US has access to all flight tickets (so with passport numbers), and possibly other databases.
    – Giacomo Catenazzi
    Jan 7, 2019 at 13:26
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    Telling the US about your other passport does not mean that they will ask to see it, much less stamp it. They won't.
    – phoog
    Jan 7, 2019 at 13:28
  • Right I see. @phoog but can it set up a "precedent" where they know I have a B passport, meaning if I use B to go to Iran, they can ask to see the passport and find out?
    – Marses
    Jan 7, 2019 at 13:36
  • Passports are not normally valid for your entire lifetime. Many countries, I believe, will let you have two separate passports, so that you can show one to country A and one to country B.
    – Tomas By
    Jan 7, 2019 at 14:17
  • If you want to travel to Iran then you cannot afterwards (legally) use the VWP to enter the US. Them's the rules. You might get away with lying to the US authorities, but we don't recommend that.
    – hmakholm left over Monica
    Jan 7, 2019 at 15:05

1 Answer 1

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  1. You are legally required to disclose all passports on your ESTA form
  2. Unless your second passport is from a country that the US really doesn't like, it's unlikely it would make any difference to your application
  3. Lying on the ESTA form is not a great idea. If caught it may very well result in you being kicked out and being banned from the US for a non-trivial amount of time.
  4. The US is unlikely to share your second passport info with anyone else. They have no reason to do so.
  5. I don't think that anyone can assess the "probability" of the US detecting the omission of the second passport. Unless your second passport is already in a US federal data base, the chances are probably small, but they are not zero either. Why take the risk?
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