The San Marino passport stamp, minus the myths

Few things about San Marino spark as much curiosity as the passport stamp, and few are explained so badly. So I’ll be straight from the start. It exists, it’s a souvenir rather than a border check, and the official details of where you get it and what it costs are on a website I couldn’t consult. I’d rather tell you that than hand you an address and a price I haven’t checked.

Why does nobody stamp you on the way in?

Because there’s nobody there to do it. Nobody checks anything where Italy ends and San Marino begins, and the Sammarinese government itself talks of centuries without controls. You cross at Dogana under a welcome arch without stopping the car or getting off the bus.

For a British traveller, though, there’s a stamp that genuinely matters, and it isn’t San Marino’s. According to the FCDO, a British passport needs a valid entry stamp from a Schengen country to be in San Marino, which in practice means the one you receive on landing in Italy. It also wants the passport to be under ten years old on arrival and to run for three months past your Schengen exit. That’s the checking that counts, and it happens before you ever see the Titano. The rest is in safety and rules in San Marino.

What the tourist stamp actually is

According to Wikipedia, which is all I’ve been able to use on this, a state tourist office will put a souvenir stamp in your passport that the authorities regard as official. The same encyclopedia describes it slightly differently elsewhere, as a souvenir postage stamp you buy at the office and have cancelled in your passport. The two accounts agree on what matters. It’s a keepsake applied by the state, not by a souvenir seller.

I think it’s a lovely touch for a country that claims a postal service going back to 1607. It’s also exactly the sort of thing that invites misunderstandings. It gives you no rights, proves nothing to any other country and doesn’t replace the document you travel on. Think of it as a postmark in a book you happen to carry everywhere, and decide if you want that page used before anyone reaches for the ink pad.

Where do you get it, and how much is it?

This is the gap. The only official source that explains the stamp is the tourist office website, visitsanmarino.com, and I couldn’t consult it. So I won’t give you an address, opening hours or a price I haven’t been able to read at source.

What I’d do is simple. Once in the old town, I’d ask for the tourist information office, confirm the price and hours there and only then hand over my passport. If someone in the street or in a shop offers you the stamp, I’d walk on. The state’s is the only one that makes sense.

Will it cause trouble at other borders?

No official source I’ve read addresses it either way, so I won’t reassure you or alarm you. What I can say is that it isn’t an entry or exit stamp, and the stamp border staff look for is your Schengen entry stamp from Italy. If you’re worried about your passport pages, ask at the office before they stamp.

The alternative I like better

San Marino has issued its own postage stamps since 1 August 1877, and its postal service calls itself the first in the world designed for everyone, with a postman appointed on 7 October 1607 to walk the letters down to Rimini. Poste San Marino is the one making that claim, and it has an interest, but it’s a good story all the same.

So my favourite keepsake isn’t the passport one. It’s buying a Sammarinese stamp, sticking it on a postcard and posting it from the Città’s post office, at Via Gino Giacomini 69, open Monday to Friday from 08:15 to 17:30 and on Saturdays from 08:15 to 12:00. It arrives home with the country’s postmark. If philately tempts you, I go further in San Marino coins and stamps, and the Stamp and Coin Museum is included in the pass for San Marino’s museums. Getting there in the first place is covered in how to get to San Marino. A postcard to the UK needs €1.35 in stamps, and branches and hours are listed under San Marino post office.