Visa Exempt Stamp Colour High Light Pen Marking

[Digitalbanana]

Just curious if there is a system or meaning to the colour highlight pen swipes that immigration officials apply to visa exempt stamps? I have had greens and one yellow so far? Are there any other colours and what do they all mean to an immigration official?

My last colour was yellow, does that mean I get one more go?

[Farma]

I think the colour change is to make it easier for the immigration staff to identify what entries have been made in each 6 month period.

The green markings indicated the first 6 months and now they are using yellow.

I've entered twice in this second 6 month period and the immigration officer wrote the number of days of my previous visit in a circle against the second entry stamp. It looks like it's a way to make it easier for them to tally up the number of days.

[sriracha john]

As previously noted:

She tried to answer my question about the color coded stamp but couldn't explain it in English, but the smile made up for it. It was green, which I assume was the color for the first visa-exempt entry stamp in a new 180-day block.

but nevertheless, just out of curiosity, are they initiating a traffic-light system now for the color-coding of stamps?

Green

Yellow

Red

I would presume we can assume there'll be tighter enforcement of the "red" visa stamp then there is for the "red" traffic light...

[cali4995]

I'm not sure if there is any intentional purpose to the color of the highlighter used. I was flipping through my passport to check and stamp #2 has a yellow highlighted handwritten #2 and stamp #4 has a green highlighted handwritten #1. It might just be what they had in the office at the time.

[PhilHarries]

I think cali is correct, it just happens to be the colour highlighter the immi officer has to hand that day, mine are all yellow. I don't know how they indicate which stamps are older than the six months, if they do at all. My first entry after Oct '06 was in Nov so I'm at the six months point. I can see them getting pissed off sifting through a passport like mine with many VE stamps but all for short stays with a couple of long ones thrown in.