Copy of the Passport for the Interview

[dmaddox74]

I won't be able to make my wife's interview so I'm going to scan my passport and make copies.

 

Do I need to make a copy of every page or just the ones that pertain to my travels to China?

[Trigg]

They will likley never look at it. I just scanned the first page and any pages that had to do with travel to China. They never looked but more is better.

[Mengxin]

Go for it dude. Copy every page. better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

[C4Racer]

My SO was asked if she had copies of my passport. Then they did not look. I have a feeling the VO saw my passport and this is why he asked. It would be best if you are not going to be there to copy the whole thing and have it notarized.

[yave20b]

It seems to me that someone on this Web site had posted not too far back that they could not make their fiancee's interview in Guangzhou to give her their passport. Somehow the VO ended up asking for some proof that he had indeed visited her in China however many times she said he had and requested a 'certified copy" of his passport even though his fiancee had supplied a photocopy of his passport. My recollection is that he had to get every page of his passport certified to satisfy them. I got my passport certified in October from one of those UPS stores as a precaution in case I couln't make the interview. I only did the first page at that time. I remember they charged several bucks for the first page then $1.00 for each additional page to certify. If you got the standard 22 or 23 page passport whatever it is, I'd go ahead and get all pages certified. It will cost less than $30.00. To cerify it the Notary has to physically photocopy himself and then each page is stamped with a special stamp that certifies it, which is different than a notary stamp, then signs each page in a space in the stamped area. Certified copies are what the Consulate has asked for. You can't do a Notarized copy. Notarizing is when you need to sign some sort of statement or contract and have your identity verified and your signature witnessed by someone who is legally delegated by the state to perform this function...i.e. a notary public. Certifying a document is what you want when you need to supply copies of documents that are considered legally acceptable copies. Don't know about where you live but here in South Texas almost no notaries had a clue about "certifying" documents. The only place I could find anyone who knew anything about it and how to do it was at a UPS store here.

[NY-Viking]

I signed an affidavit, something to the effect of, "The attached is a true, accurate and complete photocopy of my passport, number XXXXX, valid from XX to XX. Signed, XXX" and then I had the affidavit notarized and attached it to a photocopy of my entire passport (all 48 pages).

 

I don't think a passport photocopy was asked for during the interview, but I figured if they did, it would show complete dates of entry/exit, and provide some validity that I wasn't including pages from someone else's passport. We had also traveled out of China together a few times, so it showed those visas and entry/exit stamps as well.

 

Oh, and since I just renewed my passport last year, I also signed an affidavit about my expired passport, and photocopied that one as well.

 

I'm not sure if most US notaries are authorized to certify that something is a true copy of the original. Anyone here a notary that can verify?

[njbernie]

My suggestion, copy all pages and notarize each one. My SO just got finished her interview, got rejected. They want a notarized copy of my passport, but get this, my SO had the original in her had during her interview!!! Arrrrr!

[leejcandle]

I scanned all pages of mine and had each page notarized. Cheap insurance.

 

Since many pages are empty, there's no unique information on the pages, I followed advice I read here and first created sheets with the passport number, incrementing page numbers, and the obligatory "This is a true copy...bla..bla". Then I put those sheets back in the printer, printed the scanned pages on them.