What To Do If Your Passport Is Stolen or Lost While Abroad

I don’t think there is anyone out there who doesn’t like traveling. It is no doubt one of the most exciting things one can do. At the same time, there are some chances to get into trouble while having fun. Now, you must be wondering, what am I talking about? Taking care of your belongings especially documents while traveling abroad is one of the most important things. The most common incident that can happen to anyone even experienced travelers is a lost or stolen passport.

It’s a common fact that you start to panic when you realize that your passport is lost/stolen. However, you don’t need to worry and should keep calm. In this blog, I’ll share a guide about what to do if you lose your passport while traveling. Let’s get started!

What To Do When Your Passport is Lost or Stolen While Traveling?

1. Report To The Nearest Police Station

When you find out that your passport is lost, the very first and foremost step is to head to the nearest police station to file a report. When you find your passport nowhere, you don’t know exactly, if it is lost or stolen. In that case, reporting to the police station will be quite helpful as it will prevent any misuse of your passport. Hereafter, the police will provide you with a detailed report. The report will explain the whole incident of lost passport. It proves to be a very important document while traveling abroad in such cases.

It is worth mentioning here that this task could be difficult for some people. You may face language barriers in the country you are traveling. So, filing a report to the police station of such a country can somehow become frustrating to you. To handle this problem, you are advised to take help from language interpretation services. Apart from this, people having some extra copies of their passports can find better ways to deal with this problem.

2. Head To Country’s Embassy

The next thing you can do after getting your hands on the police report is to go to the country’s embassy. The most important thing is to take a new passport photo along with you before reaching the embassy. It will help you a lot and will speed up the process of getting a replacement passport more quickly. At the embassy, you will have to file a report again that your passport has been missing. You need to tell them that you have already filed a report at the police station. Show them the police report copy. It will help the embassy individuals know about your planned departure from that particular country. They will afterward try to give you a temporary emergency travel document so that you can reach your home country timely.

All these lost/stolen cases vary from person to person. So, there are chances that the country’s embassy may ask you to fill out a form. It will be quite different from the one you would have already filled at the police station. The new form will initiate an application for your new passport. Depending upon your case, you may have to fill out an additional statement form regarding the lost passport. It is pertinent to mention here that embassies do not work on the weekends and public holidays. So, you can only get the emergency passport on working days.

Documents Required For Emergency Passport

If you want to apply for a temporary passport, you should have a set of important documents with you. Let’s have a look at the required documents:

• • New passport photo
  • Any identification card. For instance, National ID/ driver’s license.
  • Travel itinerary / a copy of your plane ticket
  • Proof of citizenship ( Your birth certificate can help you in this case. If you do not have a CRC/Birth certificate with you then you can ask any of your family members to send it via mail.
  • Police report of your lost passport along with the application for an emergency passport.

This procedure is quite time-consuming. Moreover, you will also have to pay some charges. The good part is that you can get your emergency passport within one working day if all legal formalities are fulfilled. The most important thing that you need to keep in mind is that your passport will only be valid for one year. You will have to apply for a new one after heading to your country whose validity is 5/10 years. If your application process takes more than a day, you can contact your travel agent to reschedule your flights.

Tips To Keep Your Documents Safe While Traveling

• Scan all important documents
• Keep Photocopies of the travel documents along with you
• Send scanned copies of all crucial documents to your email address so that you can print them when required
• Don’t carry the original documents with you. Try to leave them in your hotel room