Traveling is the most exciting things that one likes to do in their daily life. At the same time, there are some probabilities to get caught up while having fun. It is possible that you forget to check your belongings before leaving any specific location, which may result to lose any of your valuable belongings. Among this, the most common incident is of the lost passport and the worst thing is that it can happen to anyone even to the experienced travelers.
It has been noticed that no sooner you realize that your passport is lost, you start to panic and then end up having bad thought cross your mind but this should not be done. Instead, you must remain cool and hands-on this guide about what to do if you lost your passport while traveling.
What to do when your passport is lost or stolen abroad?
1. Report to the nearest police station
As soon as you find that you have lost your passport, then the first and the foremost thing that you must do is report to the nearby police station and report for the same. In case, your passport is stolen then this procedure will help you to present any misuse of the passport. Henceforth, the police individuals will give you a detailed report which will explain the entire incident of lost passport. This is one of the crucial documents and will help you for the future use.
If you are expecting any language barriers in the police station then filing the police report will become a somewhat frustrating task for you. In order to deal with this problem, it is recommended by the expert that you approach language interpretation services. Apart from this, the individuals who have some extra copies of their passport will have some way to deal with this problem.
2. Contact your country’s embassy
The next thing that you must do after obtaining the police report is walk down to your country’s embassy. Moreover, try to have a new passport photo before reaching the embassy as it will speed up the process. If you are well prepared with the new picture and all then you will find you will get the replacement of the passport in a much faster way.
After reaching the embassy, you need to report again that your passport has been missing followed by the copy of the official police report. It is very much important that you let those embassy people know about your scheduled departure from that particular country. This will help you in obtaining a temporary emergency travel document in order to reach your destination in a safer manner.
It may be possible that your country’s embassy asks you to fill a form, which is somewhat different from the one that is for stolen or lost passport and is already filled at the police station. This new form will just be the new application for your passport. There are certain incidents when the police report is not enough, in those circumstances you will have to fill out an additional form which is nothing but a statement regarding your lost passport.
One thing that I would like to inform you is that embassies do not work on the weekends and also on the public holiday. Hence, you can simply understand that the emergency passport won’t be issued until or unless there comes a working day.
3. Apply for a new / emergency passport
In order to fill out the application form for the temporary passport, you need to have certain documents with you. The best thing about the required documents is that they are easy to obtain. The documents which include are:
- New passport photo
- At least one identification card such the nation ID or you can also show the driver’s license.
- It would be better if you can provide with the travel itinerary or you can provide a copy of your plane ticket.
- Some proof of citizenship, which can also be the birth certificate of the individual. If you do not have this document with you then you can ask any of your family members to mail the same.
- Do not forget to attach the police report of your lost passport along with the application for a new one.
This process will not only be a time consuming one but at the same time, it will also attract some charges.
Wait it out
After completing all the legal formalities if everything goes fine then you can get the passport within one working day. But keep in mind that this passport will only be valid for a year after which you will have to apply for a new one for which the validity is 10 yrs.
If you are unfortunate then the application process takes more than a day then at that circumstances you will have to contact your travel agent in order to reschedule your travel plans.
