Applicants preparing Form N-400, Application for Naturalization, must list each trip outside the United States (in excess of 24 hours). Part 9 of the N-400 application includes a table where you need to list these individual trips.
You can find your travel records in the following sources:
- Passport
Usually all travel records are presented in your official passport. Simply review the passport pages for date stamps of the various trips.
- Personal travel records
Use personal records to reconstruct travel history. Ask your relatives or friends, review credit card statements, try to recover old travel records from airline or transportation companies.
- FOIA Request for Travel Records
If you are still unable to reconstruct your travel history records, you can submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Generally, personal FOIA requests are free (if less than 100 pages of photocopies). You need only last 5 years of history for the purposes of the N-400 application. Usually it will take several weeks to receive a FOIA request.
In some cases you may have traveled across a U.S. border without any records. This can happen at some land border crossings where you were “waved” across by CBP officer. The CBP office did not provide any stamps or documentation. However, it’s still your responsibility to record these trips on Form N-400 to the best of your ability.