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My daughter lives in SA permanently and left SA mistakenly with her USA passport for a holiday. She is 19 years old and was not aware that this could be a problem. What passport should she use to renter SA in 1 weeks time?

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The South African passport. She cannot be denied entry with that passport.

The fact that she left on another passport is irrelevant, and not an issue for her re-entry. It probably wasn’t an issue for her exit either or they would have said something about it.

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  • Plus she might have a problem if she enters SA on her US passport and overstays her visa.
    – Simon Crase
    Commented Jul 6 at 6:58
  • @SimonCrase most countries (well, all the countries I know of, which is actually a small minority of countries) will not knowingly issue visas to their own citizens, but if they do because the citizenship wasn't known to the officer issuing the visa, the only problem is administrative, not legal.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 6 at 9:09
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    @SimonCrase they may or may not know depending on the information systems available to them and possibly the biographical data in the passport (namely birth in the country where that confers citizenship). That's why I said "knowingly." But for the most part, if an immigration officer does admit a citizen with a foreign passport, any purported limitation to their stay is without any legal effect. And those countries that take a dim view of citizens entering with foreign passports tend not to punish them for doing so.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 6 at 9:53
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    @SimonCrase some countries require you to disclose all of your citizenships when you apply for a passport and submit copies of any foreign passports in your possession, including the Netherlands and the UK, whose passport application requirements are available online. So the foreign passport will be linked to the domestic one in the passport database. For the passport issue, see passports.gov.au/news/… which never says that it's forbidden, much less punishable, to use a foreign passport.
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 6 at 22:16
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    @SimonCrase also see What is the penalty for US citizens entering/leaving the US on a foreign passport?
    – phoog
    Commented Jul 6 at 22:17

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