you would have passport control if you exited the country through some other non conventional ways.

The airlines are giving out all the information, that's why there is no need to do an exit passport control.

> you would have passport control if you exited the country through some other non conventional ways.

From the US? I can't think of any outgoing passport control at all; not by land in a private vehicle, nor by boat.

Canada also doesn't have any sort of outgoing passport control that I've seen. Leaving on a flight, it's possible that the airlines pass your info on to CBSA but there are no controls when leaving by car (you literally drive into the US, then see the CBP) or by boat (you have to report on your way in, but not out, see https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/pb-pp-eng.html ).

The UK does not check passports outbound at airports either

There's no exit passport control in Canada either, at least when going to the US (ground or air).

I never really considered this, but I believe you are right. I have travelled to dozens of different countries and the USA is the only one out of those to not have exit customs checks.

I know it's not quite the same thing, but most countries in the EU have no passport control upon exiting or entering the country as long as it's within the Schengen zone.

So France has basically no idea who shows up from Germany or leaves via Belgium. The countries on the external borders are supposed to handle all that.

Now I suppose it's possible there is a lot of data exchanged in real time and so on, but it's also possible that is a complete mess and nobody really knows anything, especially about citizens (GDPR).

It's far from the same thing. For all intents and purposes the Schengen Area works like a big country, regarding border control. That's like being surprised that Iowa doesn't check your passport when you head over into the neighboring US state :)

To the parent's point, though, passports ARE checked at the point you exit the Schengen area, whereas they're generally not when you leave the US.

They are checked by the foreign country though, not by the country you're leaving.

I have not crossed that many non-Schengen land borders, but as far as I remember it was the same every time, when going from France to England through the channel, Belgium to England by train, France to Switzerland (before Switzerland joined Schengen) and Canada to the US.

When flying from a Schengen area country to the US, border patrol on the departing side is entirely managed by that country. Often e.g. United-operated flights from larger European airports will have their own passport check, but that always happens after you pass through the departing country's passport control. At least, this is my personal experience flying between Germany and the US ~once a month.

I have been to a few airports where you explicitly clear US customs at the departing airport before leaving for the US — Vancouver, BC and Dublin Shannon come to mind.

If you've overstayed your automatic 90-day Schengen area travel visa, a common hack for backpackers and such is to intentionally leave the Schengen area from someplace like France that's generally less strict about counting exact days than many other EU countries.

To be fair, I don't have much experience flying from the Schengen area to non-Schengen area non-US countries. It's totally possible this is all rigamarole that the US government pressures other countries to do.

Over the past few years, I've flown in and out of the EU dozens of times. Every EU international airport I've flown out of has outbound passport control, operated by the local country, before you enter the international part of the terminal.

I fly between Germany and UK pretty frequently, and whilst the UK doesn't check the passport on the way out, Germany do check it on the way out (you get checked again when entering into UK).

I have heard of friends of friends who overstayed a visa and get found out on the exit gate (usually bringing a lawyer/embassy official to talk through things). This can lead to a (temporary?) travel ban to Germany and a fine.

Neither does Canada.