Should we pass a shared_ptr by reference or by value?

This question has been discussed and answered by Scott, Andrei and Herb during Ask Us Anything session at C++ and Beyond 2011. Watch from 4:34 on shared_ptr performance and correctness.

Shortly, there is no reason to pass by value, unless the goal is to share ownership of an object (eg. between different data structures, or between different threads).

Unless you can move-optimise it as explained by Scott Meyers in the talk video linked above, but that is related to actual version of C++ you can use.

A major update to this discussion has happened during GoingNative 2012 conference's Interactive Panel: Ask Us Anything! which is worth watching, especially from 22:50.

Personally I would use a const reference. There is no need to increment the reference count just to decrement it again for the sake of a function call.

Here's Herb Sutter's take

Guideline: Don’t pass a smart pointer as a function parameter unless you want to use or manipulate the smart pointer itself, such as to share or transfer ownership.

Guideline: Express that a function will store and share ownership of a heap object using a by-value shared_ptr parameter.

Guideline: Use a non-const shared_ptr& parameter only to modify the shared_ptr. Use a const shared_ptr& as a parameter only if you’re not sure whether or not you’ll take a copy and share ownership; otherwise use widget* instead (or if not nullable, a widget&).