Denied Exit?

[zacearlwanderstheworld]

I heard a story of someone being denied exiting the country at Ezeiza due to an expired tourist visa. True? Possible?

The story goes... they were told to renew their visa (via colonia, they chose) before being allowed to board the plane.

 

[davonz]

Anything is possible.. however, it has always been possible to pay the 300 peso fine at EZE.. you go to immigration there, they give you a piece of paper with the amount to pay, you go to the national bank at the airport and pay the fine, they stamp the piece of paper immigration gave you, then when you leave the country/customs etc, you show them the piece of paper and everyone is happy.
The bank will only except cash, in either US$ or pesos as payment, so make sure you have that set aside.

 

[Matt84]

hi, care to ellaborate as hat makes no sense, colonia is outside the country where ezeiza is.

Every time I hear this I think of Colonia as some sort of magic wormhole

 

[captainmcd]

Something similar happened to my wife, when we were departing EZE. No problem at check in, but upstairs at immigration they noted her Argentine passport had a five year expiration unless outside of Argentina. She would have had to go to renew the passport before leaving. She handed the official $20 US on the spot so she could board the aircraft. Since then she has entered Argentina on her Argentine Passport, and left using her U.S. passport, nobody ever questioned this process (yet) but I think some immigration officials would like a bribe.

 

[citygirl]

Doesn't make any sense. They certainly would have had to go to pay the 300 peso fine at EZE before boarding the plane. Maybe they got confused by being told they had to pay the fine? That's a given and nothing new. You can't leave without paying the fine -- but that's as far as it goes.

 

[syngirl]

I heard a story of someone being denied exiting the country at Ezeiza due to an expired tourist visa. True? Possible?

The story goes... they were told to renew their visa (via colonia, they chose) before being allowed to board the plane.

Yes it's technically true but not quite the way it's been told -- and they're idiots for having done it via Colonia instead of at the moment in the airport.

What happens at Ezeiza is that the airline will check you in but not give you your boarding pass until you go to Migraciones down the hall, fill out all the paperwork (in quintuple form), go to the bank and pay the fine, go back to the window at migraciones, show them the receipt, then they give you a piece of paper that you have to walk all the way back to the airline ticketing desk and then upon presenting it you will be given your boarding pass.

If the airline doesn't see that you're stamp is expired but when you go through customs and security they notice it, then they will be the ones that take your boarding pass from you and send you out of security to do the same process and pay the fine etc etc and bring it all back to them to present before they give you the boarding pass and be allowed to go on your merry way.

If you're lucky, maybe no one will notice, but if you don't tell them up front that you need to pay the fine then you may end up missing your flight -- because the whole bloody procedure of paying the fine requires a LOT of extra time at the airport and if you think you'll try to be sneaky and get out of paying it, you may end up finding yourself missing your flight, having to pay the fine AND having to pay for a new seat on the next flight out because it will be your fault and not the airline's that you missed your plane.

So technically yes, you are denied exit until you pay the overstay fine. But there's absolutely 0 need to go to Colonia -- you pay it all in the moment at Ezeiza.

 

[syngirl]

Something similar happened to my wife, when we were departing EZE. No problem at check in, but upstairs at immigration they noted her Argentine passport had a five year expiration unless outside of Argentina. She would have had to go to renew the passport before leaving. She handed the official $20 US on the spot so she could board the aircraft. Since then she has entered Argentina on her Argentine Passport, and left using her U.S. passport, nobody ever questioned this process (yet) but I think some immigration officials would like a bribe.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here

"five year expiration unless outside of Argentina."

But I suspect what probably happened with your wife is that she is a dual citizen holding the two passports. Argentine regulations state that if you hold dual nationality and stay inside of Argentina for more than 180 days then you must leave the country on a VALID Argentine passport. I suspect that your wife's passport was expired, but I'm not sure from the way the sentence is written. If she is staying in Argentina for less than 180day stays then she is allowed to use the US passport when she leaves, if more than 180 days she must present the Argentine passport.

 

[Nicole_Ramirez]

Something similar happened to my wife, when we were departing EZE. No problem at check in, but upstairs at immigration they noted her Argentine passport had a five year expiration unless outside of Argentina. She would have had to go to renew the passport before leaving. She handed the official $20 US on the spot so she could board the aircraft. Since then she has entered Argentina on her Argentine Passport, and left using her U.S. passport, nobody ever questioned this process (yet) but I think some immigration officials would like a bribe.

They definitly want bribes. Now if only we were thinking like them at the time we wouldn't have lost 2 days of our vacation. Lesson learned. I did see lots of people paying at the immigration office. So it seems to be quite common.

 

[steveinbsas]

I did see lots of people paying at the immigration office.

I've seen lots of people paying at the immigration office, but only at the cajas.

Did you actually see money being given to employees at the tables?


If so, can you estimate the percentage of those who were paying?