Us Landing Card
As a nonimmigrant, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) I-94 Form (Arrival-Departure Record, Form I-94 Card) or Form I-95 (Crewman's Landing Permit) shows the date you arrived in the United States and the 'Admitted Until' date, the date when your authorized period of stay in the US expires (your I-94 Form may have a shorter validity than.
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Expanded use of eGates - seven countries added
The UK Government has expanded the use of eGates at Heathrow to nationals of Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and the United States of America. the majority of nationals from these seven countries will be eligible to use eGates and won't need to complete a landing card. Find out more about eGates.
Unless you are catching a connecting flight, your first stop after arrival will be passport control. Please note if you are arriving In Terminal 5B and Terminal 5C, you will need to take the transit train.
What to do at the border
There are two queues at passport control – one for British, European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA), Swiss, American, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea nationals and a second for all other nationalities.
At the passport desk a Border Force officer will ask to see your passport or travel document and any supporting documentation necessary for your visit. Your passport must be valid for the whole of your stay.
For information about entry requirements into the United Kingdom, visit the Border Force website.
With tougher checks now in place at the border, you may have to wait a little longer to get into the United Kingdom, especially at peak times.
eGates – arrivals made easy
Automated eGates offer an alternative to conventional passport checks.
Simply scan your e-passport at the barrier. The system runs a face-recognition check against the chip in your passport, then if you're eligible to enter the UK the gate opens automatically – all in a matter of seconds.
You need to be over 12 and have an e-passport (look for the 'chip' logo on the front) issued by a country in the European Economic Area* and the following additional countries: Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and the United States of America.;
Border Force's Registered Traveller service
Registered Traveller is a membership service which offers faster and more convenient entry at passport control for frequent travellers to Heathrow. At passport control, you’ll be able to use the eGates (if you have a biometric passport) and the UK/EU channel.
Up to 40 countries have signed up to the scheme and the latest list of eligible passports is available at gov.uk.
Stopovers in Britain
There is nowhere to sleep in the airport. If your booking includes a stopover in a local hotel, follow Arrivals and leave the airport via passport control, baggage reclaim and Customs, then check in as normal when it's time to continue your journey. Your travel documents must allow you entry into the UK.
You can apply for a 24-hour visa on arrival. These are granted at the discretion of the Immigration Officer, who must be satisfied that you have a confirmed booking of onward travel within 24 hours.
* The European Union and European Economic Area
EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Irish Republic, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom.
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Norway are not members of the European Union (EU) but citizens of these countries have the same rights to enter, live in and work in the United Kingdom as EU citizens.
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Whenever you enter the US, you are required to fill out Form 6059B, which asks for your personal details and whether or not you're bringing in any restricted goods. Whenever you are entering the UK, you are required to fill out a landing card and passengers entering Canada fill out an E311 Declaration Card. As far as I can tell the immigration officers usually completely ignore whatever details you wrote in those forms and simply scan your passport to enter your details into their computer. It therefore looks like a complete waste of time, as the majority of passengers have no goods to declare anyway and therefore the immigration forms get thrown away right after you get your passport stamp.
So what's the point of these forms/declarations? Why require absolutely everyone to fill them out? As a bonus question explain why car passengers are spared from this obligation and are instead asked verbally if they have something to declare.
2 Answers
My understanding is that the forms primarily exist for two purposes:
- For tracking. This is increasingly obsolete as records become digital, and while bureaucracy moves slowly, some of these forms are disappearing: eg. the US paper I-94 is long gone and Australia no longer has departure cards.
- For making it easier to charge you with crime. For example, if you bring in drugs and state on your declaration form that you're not bringing in drugs, that's two offences right there, and it's apparently often easier to charge you with the bureaucratic violation than the actual contraband. (See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937)
Download film fast & furious 7 subtitle indonesia ganool. I do agree that the forms often seem pointless in practice: yesterday I dutifully declared I was bringing a meat product to the US, twice at that (Customs paper form and ESTA machine), and nobody even bothered to ask me what it was (jerky), much less inspect it..
In the UK, there are situations where the landing card is recorded - a so-called coded landing. This happens when, above the date stamp, you get a 'custom' rectangular stamp with the landing card number on it rather than the plain-text 6-month stamp.
This happens when there's been suspicions about a person they nevertheless chose to land, and always happens when a visa national is admitted for visa-free landside transit (until 23:59 the next day) as well as when a non-visa national is admitted for visa-free study for up to 6 months (short-term study).
As for the US, either the customs form or the APC/Global entry receipt has to be collected by the customs officer (for what purpose, I do not know) - hence the need to fill that one out.