travelling internationally with a hard wallet

[jakesun64]

Is there any danger in travelling internationally with a hard wallet? I am not afraid of confiscation, because it can be recovered with the passphrase, but what about the chance of them denying you entry into the country because you have an evil cryptocurrency hard wallet on you? Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

[1714801619]

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[dkbit98]

Is there any danger in travelling internationally with a hard wallet? I am not afraid of confiscation, because it can be recovered with the passphrase, but what about the chance of them denying you entry into the country because you have an evil cryptocurrency hard wallet on you?

There is no real danger of traveling with your hardware wallet and they can't deny you entry in country (not happened so far) if you have passphrase and if you don't carry seed phrase together with your wallet, but they can always confiscate anything from you if they think you are suspicious.
You can however get attacked by random people, get robbed resulting in stolen wallets but that is something different and not related to customs.

Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

You can do that, by importing backup seed or passphrase from any place in the world, and paper is much safer to hide and carry with yourself.
Remember that private key or seed phrase is more important to protect than actual hardware wallet device.

[mk4]

I doubt we're in a time where airport personnel are totally aware of what hardware wallets are, but as a paranoid person as I am, I wouldn't risk it. You'd 95% likely to be totally fine though.

Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

Yes of course. That's what the 12-24 word backup is for.

[cheezcarls]

I have experience traveling locally and overseas while bringing my hardware wallet without any issues at all. I didn’t declare to the personnel or immigration officers about my hardware wallet which is Ledger Nano S. Of course, I store my 24 seed phrases somewhere safe, especially if it’s going to be the last resort if worse case scenario happens.

[DoublerHunter]

Is there any danger in travelling internationally with a hard wallet?

^ I don't see any danger on it, because you can hide it anywhere in your personal belongings or even put it as a necklace pendant. It could be like a USB flash drive that no one even knows is your hardware wallet. No one will suspect if you have a cryptocurrency hardware wallet in your traveling bag or your pouch, unless if you shout it that you bring it. When buying a hardware wallet, it is pretty good if you will go to the official hardware wallet distributor not anywhere that will probably you can be bought a tampered one.

[Upgrade00]

Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

For this to happen, you will have to carry your seed phrase along with you, which comes with it's extra risks;
It can be discovered at the airport and confiscated and there's also the risk of you getting jumped and losing access to your belongings.

If you plan on traveling and you are not sure of the laws governing hardware wallets, you can try plausible deniability; use an additional passphrase to create a new wallet and send a tiny bit of Bitcoins to it. If you are asked to open up your wallet by authorities or find yourself in a $5 wrench attack, open the second address with little amount in it and shoe whoever is requesting.

[Lucius]

Is there any danger in travelling internationally with a hard wallet?

If you are an average person who has no problems with the law, and you are not on a list of people of special interest, I do not see that customs will cause you problems with a device that looks like a regular USB stick or maybe an MP3 player. Again, it all depends on which country you are traveling from and where you are going, because some countries have much stricter controls on passenger entry than others.

A lot of people ask similar questions and there are many discussions on this topic - so I would recommend everyone to do a little research into the regulations of the country they are traveling to. Let’s say it’s very interesting what the US customs powers are for their citizens returning to the country.

Customs have the right to seize one's phone, computer, and probably a Trezor, and keep them for up to 3 months, for USA citizens re-entering the USA. There are diminished rights at the US' borders upon re-entry.

[ranochigo]

Have a general sensing on the local laws first. If the jurisdiction that you're visiting explicitly bans cryptocurrency and/or deems any activities related to it as being illegal, I would advice you to err on the side of caution and leave it at home. Especially if you're a person of interest, something like this is probably an excuse that they can use. Might just be unnecessary paranoia but I personally wouldn't leave it to chances.

Hardware wallets are not completely safe from physical attacks as well, exposing it unnecessary like this would bring about a huge risk.

[Fundamentals Of]

I have not heard of any news of a person who is barred from entering a certain country simply because he is carrying a hardware wallet. It is a small gadget which would definitely not arouse any suspicion. If somebody in the airport, port, train station, terminal, etc asks what it is then you just tell him it is a USB.

Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

You can also do this. But for me this is totally unnecessary. But if it is what will make your paranoia go away, then by all means do it.

[acener]

Is there any danger in travelling internationally with a hard wallet? I am not afraid of confiscation, because it can be recovered with the passphrase, but what about the chance of them denying you entry into the country because you have an evil cryptocurrency hard wallet on you? Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

No never heard any law that is against bringing a hard ware wallet with you.
For me the only problem is losing it but since you're not afraid of it then there is nothing to worry about.

[Coin_trader]

If you are that conscious about carrying hardware wallet. Why not use crypto visa card like Crypto.com or Swipe wallet card. You can still store your crypto on your visa card without worrying that airport personnel will deny you during luggage checking. But as many said above, there's no such country that will deny you for carrying hardware wallet since they are not aware of it.

[sunsilk]

I've thought of it before if I'll be staying for long in another country, I won't bring a hardware wallet but instead I'll bring my passphrase but I won't make it look like that it's really a passphrase. I'll put some hidden code or any sequence and pattern that only me can understand it.

What you're thinking OP is doable and I think safer. You just leave the hardware itself when you're done using and transferring but never leave the recovery passphrases.

[(o)(o)ilikeboobs(o)(o)]

Store your money carefully. Putting money in a hardware wallet is risky if you lose it. I assume that electronic devices such as cell phones, laptops, and USB-like devices will be accepted.
When traveling, carry a variety of cash from the countries you go to as it is not always possible to use your cryptocurrency easily.

[Theb]

This was in the news about New Zealand and their customs 3 years ago.

Aggressive digital border security: NZ customs can now demand phone or laptop passwords

This week Aotearoa New Zealand’s Customs Service joined the unholy ranks of countries such as USA, Canada, Australia, Russia, China and Mexico who can legally demand any passenger cough up the password to his/her “electronic device” in order to effect a “full search”.

There are several countries who can legally search you digitally and they demand for your password and much worse do a back up on your phone as well as your laptop. Keep in mind that they didn't mention anything about hardware wallets but the thing is they might suspect it as a usb storage device and they might even plugged it in their computer and ask for your passwords. So this things are the dangers on bringing a hardware wallet IMO and for me its safe to have a web wallet where you can just sign in after you have arrived and been cleared by the customs as you may never know what will happen in this kinds of searches.

[Poker Player]

I understand, as the previous comments, that nowadays, if you are not a suspicious person, you can travel with your hardware wallet that will surely go unnoticed and no one will ask you for your password if they see it or anything.

But wouldn't it be better to transfer part of your funds to a wallet on your mobile, uninstall it and install it again when you arrive at your destination? I ask this from a complete lack of knowledge, as I have never used a wallet on my mobile, but I imagine that you can uninstall it, and with the seeds written down somewhere, reinstall it later.

[BlackHatCoiner]

@jakesun64, I'm sure that you'll be fine, but even if you want to be hundred percent sure for your safety on your international traveling, then simply:  Don't use hardware wallets. Use a computer software instead. There are plenty of useful non-custodial wallets. My favourites are electrum and wasabi.

Although, you must ensure that the laptop you're travelling doesn't contain anything malicious. Keep in mind that the difference with software wallets is that your keys can be found on your hard drive. If you're not sure about your computer's security ^{(you are probably not)}, don't risk your funds. Carry the device with you.

If you are that conscious about carrying hardware wallet. Why not use crypto visa card like Crypto.com or Swipe wallet card. You can still store your crypto on your visa card without worrying that airport personnel will deny you during luggage checking.

How can you really propose such solution to someone? Since when storing your bitcoins on a hardware wallet is the same thing with visa card or any other single authority?

But wouldn't it be better to transfer part of your funds to a wallet on your mobile, uninstall it and install it again when you arrive at your destination?

No, it wouldn't. You would then have to trust your mobile, which usually runs on a closed-source environment. Besides the operating system, you have to be careful of the apk you'll install. Not to mention that you have to be sure about your phone's security. There are just so many victims that lost funds from a mobile wallet... That's because there are many intermediates.

A person that isn't familiar with technology will have to trust:

• The operating system's developers.
• The developer of the wallet.
• The app store he/she will download it from.
• Every other application he/she has installed.

[DarkIT]

Is there any danger in travelling internationally with a hard wallet? I am not afraid of confiscation, because it can be recovered with the passphrase, but what about the chance of them denying you entry into the country because you have an evil cryptocurrency hard wallet on you? Could I buy a hard wallet in my country, transfer crypto to it, then leave it behind in a safe place, then buy another same hard wallet in another country and using my passphrase get access to my crypto again?

You can use the wallet like wazirx ,it was a sub wallet of binance and trusted one.Because I had using over a week,it was easy to withdrew crypto into the your fiat.Because many exchanges and website charging huge money to withdrew crypto into fiat.So it will be the good option to use such wallet instead of caring the funds in hand.We don't know,how the new environment will be.

[jerry0]

I had thread on this as well a while back.  But to those of you who travel with hardware wallet, do you carry your seed as well with you?  That seem to be a huge concern because let say they flag you for some reason even though you have nothing on you and ask you to take everything out, well you seed will be there.  So imagine you have it in your wallet or carry on or whatnot and they look at it, well assuming they know about crypto, im sure they would easily be able to get your coins right?  Also x ray see everything but could they see words as well?  Imagine you have piece of paper in your carry on and as the person checks the xrays, they see a bunch of words and then go... hey that looks like a seed phrase.  Then couldn't they just rescan while taking a pen and paper and write it down etc?  Or is that very extreme paranoia etc.



I also heard of cases where people were told to unlock their phones and maybe laptops such as if they are suspicious of them traveling... but could they say hey put your pin in to open your hardware wallet?  That would be very bad if they could do that but zero case of that ever happening right?  I mean if you are a criminal or things like that... could they even do that to them?



Someone mentioned about traveling with the crypto debit card instead.  Im not familiar with those cards but when you use it... you still need to type a pin though right?  If so, how is that any safe than a hardware wallet?
Im guessing it look like credit cards so its not like they confiscate it and use it etc?

[Twentyonepaylots]

Why would anyone think of a hard wallet as some form of doomsday-inducing device from the future? It's not like nobody knows about bitcoin nowadays even if it's second-hand knowledge. Besides, the newer version hard wallets are much lighter and much more appealing to the eyes so you don't have to worry about people thinking you're carrying a bomb on the airport. Not unless you buy the ones that weigh a lot however, that will definitely get you screwed. So it's not about how bitcoin is accepted in the country, it is what are the means you will use to keep it with you where ever you are. If you chose hard wallets, that's good. Pick the best based on your need and preference and stick from there.

[DdmrDdmr]

Looking around for cases with issues derived from carrying a hardware wallet barely seems to return anything significant, if at all, so it doesn’t seem to be a currently running issue.

It does have a potential though, and that is whether they will interpret, at some point, that carrying a value in BTC above a certain threshold might qualify for the need to fill-in the corresponding declaration form. The US Customs for example, requires you to explicitly declare if you are carrying in or out of the country an equivalent of >= 10K$ in currency or other monetary instruments.
Bitcoin is currently not considered technically as such in most places, but it doesn’t seem far-fetching to envision its inclusion (securities and stocks are on the list provided below for example, which one might not have expected).

Of course there’s all the debate around the fact that you’re not actually carrying bitcoins, but rather keys to access them. Even so, I would not be the least surprised to see cryptocurrency explicitly listed in the years to come. Then everyone would shift to using passphrases just in case ...

See: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/currency_reporting.pdf