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I lost my passport with a valid US visa on it. I informed the US embassy about it and got a new passport. After a few months, I found my old lost passport with the valid US visa on it.

Can I now travel to the US on the basis of the valid US visa stamped on my old passport, while carrying both the old and new passports together?

If not, what should I do now? I will have to apply for the visa again, and go through the hassle of filling up the form, submitting the visa fee, going to the embassy, etc. And I am not even sure whether they will give the visa again.

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    @JoeBlow An expired passport is very different from a lost/stolen passport. If you present a lost/stolen passport to a US border official, they will probably assume it is stolen and that you are the thief.
    – emory
    Sep 9, 2016 at 13:49
  • @JoeBlow Also note that some visas may automatically expire if the passport does. I have some that specifically say "valid for twelve months as long as the passport remains valid".
    – knowah
    Sep 9, 2016 at 13:54
  • Even if the Visa remained valid... do you really want to risk presenting a passport that -- for all you know --- could have been used by criminals or terrorists to an US official? Really?
    – Damon
    Sep 9, 2016 at 14:58
  • No! Don't do this! Destroy the passport you reported as lost.
    – TheMathemagician
    Sep 9, 2016 at 16:21
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    @TonyK that document is a set of instructions for UK officials. Nobody should ever do that to their own passport.
    – phoog
    Sep 9, 2016 at 17:57

1 Answer 1

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No you cannot travel with your old visa

If you have already reported your visa lost/stolen to the U.S. Embassy or Consulate, and then you later find your misplaced visa, then your visa will be invalid for future travel to the United States. Therefore, in that situation you must apply for a new visa at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

SOURCE

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    Worth mentioning what happens to visas for other countries. Are they generally invalidated too?
    – user541686
    Sep 9, 2016 at 11:38
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    Whether the visa is valid or not is the wrong question. Whether you want to be found travelling on a cancelled passport, incarcerated, returned to your point of origin and banned from the US for 5 years is the right question. That is what may happen if you try to use a passport reported as lost.
    – TheMathemagician
    Sep 9, 2016 at 16:23
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    @TheMathemagician: I don't think the OP was intending any form of deception. I think they want to know whether it's OK to use the new passport for travel, and the US visa in the old passport for entry to the US. (And DumbCoder's quote proves that the answer is no.)
    – TonyK
    Sep 9, 2016 at 17:09
  • @Mehrdad There are over 200 countries in the world. That's far too much data to list in response to a question that explicitly asks about US visas.
    – David Richerby
    Sep 9, 2016 at 19:08
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    @DavidRicherby: It does actually. It tells you you should probably worry. On the other hand if only 2% of them did then you'd know it's probably something obscure and some people would find it worth risking. Of course if your risk tolerance is so low then that's a different matter, but a lot of people look at this from a more practical standpoint.
    – user541686
    Sep 9, 2016 at 19:32

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