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I have three expired and one recently renewed valid passport.

Should I preserve my older passports, or can I throw them away in the trash can?

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  • I am trying to declutter my life but disposing of old passports is very far down my list of things to go. They are not big, you won't free up much space.
    – badjohn
    Commented Oct 7 at 0:03

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You don't say where your passports are issued and this is important for the answer.

In a lot of countries, you are expected to return your passport to the government service that issues them, after the passport expires or when you get a new one. They may let you to keep the old one if you need it for a compelling reason (e.g. a visa that is imprinted there and is still valid) or, in other places, for any reason (e.g. a sentiment), but the rule still holds.

Besides of the above reason, you may need (in the future) to prove that you traveled here or there or that you were issued a visa for some country. E.g. a lot of countries will let you in with no other formailities if you have a valid OR EVEN EXPIRED visa for a particular other country. Schengen and USA visas are rather useful in this regard.

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    The USA sends your old ones back. Good memories of trips. I’d never dispose of them…
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Oct 6 at 2:32
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    The UK also sends the old ones back to you along with the new one when you renew them (doesn't need requesting, they just do). But they chop the corners off the two covers and personal information page to make sure it can't be used again.
    – Tom Carpenter
    Commented Oct 6 at 13:33
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    @TomCarpenter The US also mutilates the old one so it can’t be reused. The ones I’ve seen returned had a pair of holes punched all the way through (covers and all) about 1/4 of the way down from the top.
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Commented Oct 7 at 1:54
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    When renewing my German passport I was offered to keep the old one. They mutilated it a bit (they cut a corner away). I guess it is to prevent the blank pages to be reused for a forgery.
    – Florian F
    Commented Oct 7 at 7:04
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    similar in the Netherlands @FlorianF, here they punch 4 big holes in the corners. Also makes it clearly visible when presenting the old passport that it's no longer valid.
    – jwenting
    Commented Oct 7 at 9:38
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You can dispose of expired passports as you wish, but you might want to review this question and its answers before you do so — there are good reasons to keep them.

If you do discard expired passports, they should be shredded. I would not discard a passport that is still valid.

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    Even if not valid, it contains a lot of information which could be used for identity theft. Do not trust throw away an intact passport. Shred it or somehow make sure at least the whole bio page (including the machine readable zone at the bottom) is made completely and definitively illegible. If the passport contains a chip, make sure it is destroyed as well.
    – jcaron
    Commented Oct 4 at 21:45
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    If you discard (or lose) a still valid passport it is very likely you need to report it lost or stolen at the police and use the paperwork from that when you apply for a new passport.
    – Willeke ♦
    Commented Oct 5 at 7:55
  • There are some cases that an old passport can be used as ID (not for travelling but e.g. the UK government recently introduced photo-ID for voting and you can use an expired passport if it's still recognisably you), so if you have mislaid your current passport or had to send it away for a visa application, it might be useful.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Oct 7 at 10:58
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Another use case where old passports can be useful:

When converting a foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's license, you are required to prove that, after the foreign license was issued, you spent at least three months in the issuing country.

The goal, as I understand it, is to prevent people from going to countries where driver's licenses are easily obtained without testing or training in order to circumvent the Japanese driver training regime.

Presenting a stack of old passports is the most common way of demonstrating this. It's officially recommended, in fact, to bring your expired passports.

There are more and more situations where travelers do not receive a stamp in their passport when entering or exiting a country: it's an interesting question as to when this practice of using old passports to show residency will end. As for now, it's still commonly used.

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I keep mine. On visa applications or even arrival cards, some countries ask for countries visited in the last ‘X’ years, and having the stamps to flip through is a great reminder.

I’ve also had to provide this information for other official purposes.

Of course you may need to keep (and bring) an expired passport if it contains a visa that is still valid.

Also a reminder of places visited along with images of your aging countenance.

P.S. This should be obvious, but store the valid passport in a different place than the historic ones. Grabbing an expired passport and not noticing it until you got to document checking at the airport could be disastrous.

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