Navigating International Travel After a Felony Conviction

A federal felony conviction does not by itself disqualify you from holding a U.S. passport. The passport regulations list specific grounds for refusal, and “convicted of a felony” is not among them. What stops people is usually one of three other things: a narrow statutory bar that happens to apply, the travel condition attached to their supervision, or the entry law of the destination country, which is the part almost nobody checks until the trip is booked.

Whether a felony conviction blocks a U.S. passport

The grounds for refusing a passport are set out at 22 CFR 51.60, which separates grounds the State Department must act on from grounds where it has discretion.

Three mandatory grounds reach people with federal cases, and each turns on a threshold rather than a category: child support arrearages exceeding $2,500 under 42 U.S.C. 652(k), a seriously delinquent tax debt certified under 26 U.S.C. 7345, which the IRS puts at more than $66,000 for 2026 and which excludes debt being paid on time under an accepted installment agreement or offer in compromise, and status as a covered sex offender, who under 22 U.S.C. 212b may hold a passport only if it carries a “unique identifier.”

The tax ground sits in 51.60(h), and that paragraph is not quite absolute. It bars issuance “except a limited validity passport for direct return to the United States or in instances where the Department finds that emergency circumstances or humanitarian reasons exist.”

The discretionary grounds in 51.60(b) catch people with open or recent cases: an outstanding federal or state felony warrant, a pending extradition request, a grand jury or federal felony subpoena, or being “subject to a criminal court order, condition of probation, or condition of parole, any of which forbids departure from the United States and the violation of which could result in the issuance of a Federal warrant of arrest.” Both halves of that last one carry weight. The order has to forbid leaving the country, and violating it has to be capable of producing a federal warrant.

Two conviction-based bars exist, and both are narrower than usually described. Under 22 U.S.C. 2714 a passport may not be issued to someone convicted of a federal or state drug felony, or a drug misdemeanor the Secretary of State designates, but only if the person “used a passport or otherwise crossed an international border in committing the offense.” The bar runs only while the person is imprisoned or legally required to be imprisoned, and while on parole or other supervised release afterward. The Secretary may still issue a passport in emergency circumstances or for humanitarian reasons.

The second sits at 22 CFR 51.60(h)(1) and 22 U.S.C. 212a and reaches a conviction under 18 U.S.C. 2423. It carries the same border-crossing element, and its window runs from the date of conviction to the later of release from imprisonment or the end of parole or other supervised release.

Ground	Authority	Mandatory or discretionary
Child support arrears over $2,500	42 U.S.C. 652(k); 22 CFR 51.60(a)(2)	Mandatory refusal, except a passport for direct return to the United States
Seriously delinquent tax debt over $66,000 (2026)	26 U.S.C. 7345; 22 CFR 51.60(h)(2)	Mandatory refusal, subject to the emergency, humanitarian and direct-return exceptions in 51.60(h)
Covered sex offender	22 U.S.C. 212b; 22 CFR 51.60(a)(4), (g)	Passport only with identifier; no passport card
Drug conviction involving a border crossing	22 U.S.C. 2714; 22 CFR 51.61(a)	Mandatory during custody and supervision, subject to 2714(d) emergency and humanitarian exceptions
Drug misdemeanor involving a border crossing, other than a first possession conviction	22 CFR 51.61(b)	Discretionary refusal while imprisoned or on supervised release
18 U.S.C. 2423 conviction involving a border crossing	22 U.S.C. 212a; 22 CFR 51.60(h)(1)	Mandatory during the covered period, subject to the same exceptions
Outstanding felony warrant, federal or state	22 CFR 51.60(b)(1), (b)(9)	Discretionary refusal
Court order or condition of supervision forbidding departure	22 CFR 51.60(b)(2)	Discretionary refusal

Under 8 U.S.C. 1185(b) it is unlawful for a U.S. citizen to depart from or enter the United States without a valid U.S. passport, so the document that lets you leave is also what brings you home if a border officer abroad turns you around. The statute is not absolute. It opens “[e]xcept as otherwise provided by the President,” and the exceptions are set out at 22 CFR 53.2. They are narrow and document-specific: active-duty military travel under orders, a cruise entirely within the Western Hemisphere that begins and ends at the same U.S. port, a NEXUS, SENTRI or FAST card at a land or sea port of entry from contiguous territory or adjacent islands, and documents the Secretary of Homeland Security has determined are sufficient under section 7209(b) of Public Law 108-458.

A passport card is not one of those exceptions. Under 22 CFR 51.3(e) it is a passport, issued on the same basis as a passport book and valid only for departure from and entry to the United States through land and sea ports between the United States and Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean and Bermuda. The denial grounds above reach it the same way, and 22 CFR 51.60(g) bars one outright for a covered sex offender.

What a refusal looks like, and when a hearing comes with it

Under 22 CFR 51.65(a) the State Department sends written notice of a denial or revocation, stating the specific reasons and, where they apply, the review procedures at 22 CFR 51.70 through 51.74. A revoked passport has to be surrendered on demand under 51.66.

That review is a hearing, requested in writing, and the Department has to receive the request within 60 days of the person’s receipt of the notice. Missing the window makes the denial the Department’s final action. There is no discovery and no subpoena power, the person carries the burden of persuasion by a preponderance, and under 51.74 the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services decides with no further administrative review.

Which grounds come with a hearing is the part worth reading twice. Section 51.70(a) reaches the discretionary grounds in 51.60(b), (c) and (d), the drug misdemeanor ground in 51.61(b), and revocations under 51.62(a)(1) and (a)(2). Section 51.70(b) excludes the rest, and the excluded list is mostly the mandatory conviction-based bars: 51.60(a), the passport card prohibition in 51.60(g), the drug trafficking bar in 51.61(a), and the 18 U.S.C. 2423 revocation in 51.62(d). The grounds tied most closely to a conviction are the ones with no hearing attached.

Getting permission to travel while you are on supervised release

Supervised release begins the day Bureau of Prisons custody ends, and for as long as it runs, leaving the judicial district is a permission question.

The standard condition in federal cases reads: “You must not knowingly leave the federal judicial district where you are authorized to reside without first getting permission from the court or the probation officer.” Its basis is 18 U.S.C. 3563(b)(14), which lets the court require that you remain within its jurisdiction “unless granted permission to leave by the court or a probation officer.”

For travel abroad, the Judiciary’s guidance goes further than the statute. The Administrative Office’s Overview of Probation and Supervised Release Conditions instructs that “probation officers should seek the express consent of the court before granting a defendant permission to travel outside of the United States,” and that beforehand the officer “should check with the consulate of the visited country to ensure that any special requirement or restriction on defendant travel can be met.” The statute lets your officer approve a trip; national policy sends an international request to the sentencing judge.

The same guidance lists what officers weigh: the risk the travel poses to others, whether you are in compliance with your conditions, and specifically whether you are current on financial obligations, which in a white collar case usually means restitution. Requests go in ahead of time, and defendants are told to call the officer on return. Sam Mangel and Craig Rothfeld covered supervised release as one stage of the full arc of a federal sentence in a Speaker Series session.

Special conditions are the layer written for the individual case, allowed under 18 U.S.C. 3583(d) only where they are reasonably related to the sentencing factors and involve no greater deprivation of liberty than is necessary. They can shape a travel request in ways the standard district condition does not: financial disclosure and limits on new credit in a fraud case, treatment in a drug case, and in some cases conditions built around child custody and family court obligations for mothers under supervision.

Early termination ends the permission problem instead of managing it

While supervision runs, every trip abroad is a request someone else decides. Ending supervision early ends the request. Under 18 U.S.C. 3583(e)(1) a court may terminate a term of supervised release and discharge the defendant “at any time after the expiration of one year of supervised release,” if satisfied that it is warranted by the person’s conduct and the interest of justice. How long the term would otherwise run is fixed by 3583(b):

Offense class	Maximum term of supervised release
Class A or Class B felony	5 years
Class C or Class D felony	3 years
Class E felony, or a misdemeanor other than a petty offense	1 year

The Judiciary’s own policy goes further than the statute. Guide to Judiciary Policy, Vol. 8E, section 360.20 tells probation officers that at 18 months a presumption in favor of recommending early termination applies to a person who is not a career drug offender or career criminal, has not committed a sex offense or engaged in terrorism, presents no identified risk of harm to the public or victims, has been free of court-reported violations for 12 months, is in substantial compliance, and can show the ability to self-manage afterward. Officers are told to consider it at 12 months for anyone supervised under low-risk standards who otherwise meets the eligibility criteria.

One paragraph of that section matters more than the rest in a white collar case. Under 360.20(g), an outstanding financial penalty does not adversely affect eligibility as long as the person has kept to the payment plan for the prior 12 months. A restitution balance that will outlive the supervision term is not, as a policy matter, a bar.

Rule 32.1(c) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure requires a hearing before conditions are modified, but excuses one where the relief sought is favorable and does not extend the term and the government has had notice and a reasonable chance to object without doing so. It is also not rare: of federal post-conviction supervision cases closed successfully in fiscal year 2025, 27 percent were closed by early termination.

Canada, where one old case can stop you at the border

Canada is strict because its statute asks a question about Canadian law, not American law. Under section 36 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a foreign national is inadmissible for “serious criminality” for a conviction outside Canada for an offence that, if committed in Canada, would carry a maximum term of at least 10 years. Section 36(2) covers plain “criminality” for a conviction that would be indictable in Canada, or two convictions not arising from a single occurrence. The Canadian maximum is what counts, not the sentence you received.

Two routes back exist, and they run on different clocks:

• Deemed rehabilitation applies automatically, but narrowly. Under section 18 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, a person with no more than one foreign conviction whose Canadian equivalent would be an indictable offence is deemed rehabilitated once at least 10 years have elapsed since the day after completion of the sentence, and only if that Canadian equivalent offence carries a maximum of less than 10 years. Those are two of the seven conditions in section 18(2)(a); the remainder rule out later Canadian and foreign convictions across the same window. Two or more summary-equivalent convictions carry a five year period on their own set of conditions.
• Applied rehabilitation is an application you file. Section 17 sets that period at five years after completion of the sentence, with no subsequent convictions. IRCC’s published fee list prices it by which limb of section 36 the conviction falls under: CAD 246.25 for inadmissibility on grounds of criminality, and CAD 1,231.00 for serious criminality.

Section 24(1) also lets an officer issue a temporary resident permit to someone inadmissible when it is justified in the circumstances, cancellable at any time.

This is why impaired driving comes up so often. Section 320.19 of the Criminal Code makes impaired operation punishable on indictment by up to 10 years, which puts it inside serious criminality and outside deemed rehabilitation, since that rule requires a Canadian maximum of less than 10 years. Section 36(3)(b) says inadmissibility cannot rest on a conviction for which a record suspension “has been ordered and has not been revoked or ceased to have effect under the Criminal Records Act,” which is Canadian relief. A U.S. expungement or pardon is not covered by that text, and it is handled outside the statute: IRCC’s published answer says only that a person who received a pardon or discharge from another country should “check with the IRCC office closest to you for more information.”

The United Kingdom now screens before you fly

Appendix Electronic Travel Authorisation to the UK Immigration Rules is written in mandatory language. Under ETA 2.2, an application “must be refused” where the applicant “has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas for which they have received a custodial or suspended sentence of 12 months or more,” or “has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas unless more than 12 months have passed since the date of conviction.”

Two things follow. A suspended sentence counts the same as a custodial one, and a shorter sentence creates a waiting period measured from the date of conviction rather than the end of the sentence. ETA 2.3 separately requires refusal where an applicant’s presence is not conducive to the public good, expressly including “convictions which do not fall within the criminality grounds.”

The ETA itself is a GBP 20 application covering visits of up to six months, and the Home Office states plainly that holding one does not guarantee entry to the UK. The screen moved ahead of the flight; the officer’s discretion on arrival did not move with it.

What Europe asks now, and what it will ask when ETIAS starts

Schengen entry today does not turn on a background check. Article 6(1) of the Schengen Borders Code conditions entry on a valid travel document, a justified purpose, sufficient means, no Schengen Information System alert for refusal of entry, and not being “considered to be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any of the Member States.”

That is changing in stages. The Entry/Exit System replaced passport stamps with digital entry and exit records, biometrics included, and the European Commission announced it fully operational across Schengen on 10 April 2026. ETIAS, the travel authorisation itself, is not live. The Commission’s July 2025 announcement setting the ETIAS fee at EUR 20 says the system “will start operations at the end of 2026,” and no exact date has been published.

When it does start, the form will ask a criminal history question for the first time. Article 17(4)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1240 requires applicants to answer “whether he or she has been convicted of any criminal offence listed in the Annex over the previous 10 years and in the case of terrorist offences, over the previous 20 years, and if so when and in which country.” The Annex lists 29 categories, among them corruption, fraud, “laundering of the proceeds of crime” and computer-related crime. Most federal white collar convictions land inside them, though the question reaches back 10 years, not a lifetime.

What an ETIAS application does with a yes

Regulation (EU) 2018/1240 also sets out the machinery behind that question, and it is not a filter that refuses on sight.

Article 20(2) has the ETIAS Central System compare an application against the Schengen Information System, the Entry/Exit System, the Visa Information System, Eurodac, Europol data and the Interpol Stolen and Lost Travel Document and TDAWN databases. Those queries are about documents and alerts. The criminal history answer runs on a separate track. Under Article 26(4), where automated processing reports an affirmative reply to one of the Article 17(4) questions, the ETIAS National Unit of the Member State responsible assesses the risk and decides whether to issue or refuse. A person, not the algorithm.

The clocks are short. Article 32 requires a decision within 96 hours of an admissible application. If the unit asks for more information under Article 27, the applicant has 10 days to supply it and the 96 hours restart from that submission. If the file goes to an interview, the invitation issues within 72 hours, the interview happens within 10 days of it and may be held by video where the nearest consulate is more than 500 km away, and the decision follows within 48 hours. Article 37(1)(f) and (g) make missing either step a ground for refusal in itself.

Approval is not quite the end. Article 36(2) lets a national unit issue an authorisation carrying a flag, visible only to border authorities, recommending a second line check on arrival, and 36(6) states that an authorisation confers no automatic right of entry. Refusals carry a right of appeal under Article 37(3), in the Member State that took the decision and under that state’s law, and under 37(4) a previous refusal does not lead to automatic refusal of a later application.

Japan and Australia use sentence-length tests

Japan’s rule is in Article 5(1) of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act. Item (iv) denies landing to a person convicted under any law of Japan or any other country “and has been sentenced to imprisonment with or without work for 1 year or more, or to an equivalent penalty,” excepting political offences. The threshold is one year or more, not more than one year. Item (v) is separate and broader: anyone convicted of a narcotics, marijuana, opium, stimulant or psychotropic substance offence “and has been sentenced to a penalty,” with no sentence-length floor at all.

Australia screens through the character test in section 501 of the Migration Act 1958. Ministerial Direction No. 110 states that a person has a substantial criminal record under sections 501(6)(a) and 501(7)(a) to (c) if sentenced to death, life imprisonment, or “a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more.” The Direction also counts “2 or more terms of imprisonment where the total of those terms is 12 months,” and where terms run concurrently “the whole of each term is to be counted in working out the total,” which is the part that catches a multi-count federal sentence. Failing the test is not automatic refusal, since the Direction says section 501(1) “enables a visa to be refused.” The Department of Home Affairs instructs visa applicants to “declare all criminal conduct” charged or convicted in any country, and warns you may then be asked for a police certificate or a statement of character.

What this page deliberately does not say

An earlier version of this page said that many countries, including Mexico and most of Central and South America, do not run criminal background checks on U.S. tourists. We found no primary legal source for that, so we removed it. Entry is a discretionary decision by a border officer everywhere, and an unpublished rule is not the same as no rule.

The page also assumes a U.S. citizen throughout. For a non-citizen with a federal conviction the risk sits on the other side of the trip, because the conviction can make return impossible, and reentry after a removal order is a separate federal offense under 8 U.S.C. 1326.

The Speaker Series sessions closest to this ground are the American Bar Association Criminal Justice Section talk on collateral consequences, on why restrictions like these deserve attention from the start of a case, and the talks with Margaret Love, the former U.S. Pardon Attorney and Professor Mark Osler on where relief from a federal conviction comes from. The passport consequence of a certified tax debt sits in the territory Karen Kelly, a former head of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, covered in her session. If the real question is the release date your supervision clock starts from, our explainer on First Step Act earned time credits covers that calculation.