Can't reconcile one stamp in the passport

[piglet]

Hello,

I am just filling out my Naturalization form and I am about to fill in my absences. I have around 20 for the last three years and they are below 170 days limit (most are holidays and short trips abroad). However, there is one exit stamp in my passport which I cannot read, it is too pale, and I cannot find the corresponding entry stamp.
Needless to say, just to work out all other tangled stamps almost did my head in, but I did it eventually. But this one I have no idea where I went and for how long, it is just too pale. It would not have been more than a week absence, as there is a new stamp leaving Heathrow soon after this one.
Should I make a note on my application that I cannot work out the date/place/duration on this stamp or just leave it out alltogether without making any note of it? This excercise is a bit like Sudoku, I somehow fitted in all other dates, but this one I have no idea where I went. Any suggestions?

[VictoriaS]

I'd mention it.

Victoria

[Dawie]

Hello,

I am just filling out my Naturalization form and I am about to fill in my absences. I have around 20 for the last three years and they are below 170 days limit (most are holidays and short trips abroad). However, there is one exit stamp in my passport which I cannot read, it is too pale, and I cannot find the corresponding entry stamp.
Needless to say, just to work out all other tangled stamps almost did my head in, but I did it eventually. But this one I have no idea where I went and for how long, it is just too pale. It would not have been more than a week absence, as there is a new stamp leaving Heathrow soon after this one.
Should I make a note on my application that I cannot work out the date/place/duration on this stamp or just leave it out alltogether without making any note of it? This excercise is a bit like Sudoku, I somehow fitted in all other dates, but this one I have no idea where I went. Any suggestions?

Sorry to be pedantic, but are you aware that the UK does not stamp people's passports when they leave the UK? Accordingly there is no such thing as a UK exit stamp (at least not since 1997 or thereabouts when they abolished exit controls). I only mention this because you mentioned something about a "new stamp leaving Heathrow" which cannot possibly exist.

[archigabe]

I guess that would be the stamp on immigration control of the country you went to...that would give the date you left the UK as well.

[Christophe]

I'd mention it and note on the form that the stamp is illegible.

Because passports are not stamped on exit from the UK (or haven't been for a number of years), the passport stamps cannot in any case be used by the Home Office as the sole way of determining days spent out of the country: indeed, some applicants for naturalisation won't have any date stamps at all in their passport (EU/EEA citizens and people with right of abode certificates in their passport). So I wouldn't worry overly about it.

[yankeegirl]

Sorry to be pedantic, but are you aware that the UK does not stamp people's passports when they leave the UK? Accordingly there is no such thing as a UK exit stamp (at least not since 1997 or thereabouts when they abolished exit controls). I only mention this because you mentioned something about a "new stamp leaving Heathrow" which cannot possibly exist.

I could be totally wrong, but I thought they were in the process of bringing back exit controls? I seem to remember reading various posts on here of people encountering them (sporadically, mind you)at larger airports such as Heathrow.

[Dawie]

There are sporadic random checks at certain airports when leaving the UK but they are not proper exit controls. These checks are nothing more than a quick glance through your passport to check that you are not an overstayer. No stamp is placed in your passport if you get caught up in one of these checks.

[piglet]

Sorry, Dowrie, I wasn't very clear. Archibage guessed my criptical writing.

What I meant by "exit stamp" is the entry stamp to the country I was going to at the time (the inelligible one), but I can't find in the passport the corresponding UK entry stamp when I returned from that trip.

I have no idea what I meant with "...as there is a new stamp leaving Heathrow soon after this one", I think I got a bit confused there. I think that most of my stamps in the UK are entry stamps, not exit.


I will just mention it, thank you all for your help, this was the most difficult part of filling out this application.