What to do if you lost your passport?
hen you find your passport is lost, stolen, or missing, you can be overwhelmed by real panic, especially abroad. What to do, where to go to restore a passport of a citizen or an international passport? How long does this procedure take, and how to live without a passport while restored? The first thing you need to do is calm down.
How to find a lost passport in a foreign country
Situations with the loss of personal belongings on vacation are different. You may forget your bag of documents on a trip or walk, or your personal belongings may be stolen in public places. If you forgot your things and found a missing passport, then try to walk through the places you visited. Perhaps no one took your things. Talk to your waiter or cafe administrator if you think you might have left things there. You can leave your phone number to the restaurant staff who will let you know when your passport is found. Find a lost and found organization; there is a high probability that they will find your passport. Departments of such organizations are open at entertainment centers, in parks, in the subway, in bus or taxi companies, if things were left in transport.
How to find a lost passport if an independent search did not return any results? You need to urgently take the following actions to inform the guide about the loss; after finding the loss, he will help you contact the police. If you walk without a guide, then find the nearest police station yourself and write a statement. Find the nearest representation or consulate in your country and report lost or stolen documents. Please note that you must have a copy of the police report confirming the fact of the appeal. The consulate will issue a permit that will allow you to leave the country and return to your homeland. The service is paid, so be prepared to pay the consular fee.
You need to contact the migration service to restore your missing passport within three days after arriving home. Upon arrival, do not throw away the exit permit, as it is submitted with the main package of documents for obtaining a new identity card. We recommend you to leave a reserve amount of money in the hotel safe in case of an emergency. Your country’s representative offices may be located in another city, where you will have to go independently.
When contacting the country’s representative office, it is advisable to have additional documents, which indicate the tourist’s name and surname, his photo, and date of birth. It is necessary for identification. If there are none, then two adult fellow citizens, or relatives, can confirm that you are you.
Five recommendations from experienced travelers
In order not to find yourself in an unpleasant and stressful situation on vacation, experienced tourists advise you to follow several recommendations:
- Scan or photograph key documents, email them, or upload them to the cloud. They can be printed if necessary if copies are requested from the consulate.
- Do not take tickets and passport to excursions. Most often, a copy of the document and the page with the visa is sufficient.
- Find the addresses and contacts of the nearest embassy offices in the country of arrival before traveling.
- Hand over essential documents to the reception or keep them in the safe in your hotel room. To not forget the contents in the safe, put something there, without which you will not go to the airport.
What if you have found a passport?
If the old passport was found or it was returned to you, and the process of issuing a new document has not yet been completed, then you can use the found passport. If you filed a statement to the police about the loss, then this protected yourself from claims about possible fraud with your passport while you were not with it.
If the missing passport was returned to you after a new one was issued, then you should submit the missing passport to the migration service and use the new document.
How to find a lost passport and protect yourself from carelessness and disorganization? You need to streamline the storage of passports, tickets, payment cards, and other documents and minimize the risk of their accidental loss. Special organizers and travel cases for documents help with this. You can quickly find the passport and not worry if you properly organize the storage of documents.Besides, do not forget about lost and found organizations that will help you find not only your passport, but also other missing things. There are unique sites where people help to find missing things or post their findings. Submit details of your lost passport and search the results.
If someone has already found your passport, then most likely they reported it to the lost and found the website. You can also search for missing items by the image and detailed description. In addition, it is possible to filter lost and found items by location in the world.