Your passport is lost or stolen abroad. Here is exactly what to do

Contact your nearest embassy or consulate first, then report the passport lost or stolen, then apply for the replacement. If you are a US citizen, the 24 hour emergency line is 1-888-407-4747 from the US and Canada, or +1 202-501-4444 from anywhere else.

One thing to understand before you do anything: reporting a passport lost or stolen cancels it permanently. The State Department is blunt about this. "We will cancel your passport after you report it lost or stolen. It will no longer be valid for travel even if you find it later." So if it is genuinely just misplaced in your own room, search properly first. Once you report it, a passport that turns up in a coat pocket is a souvenir.

This is the companion to our post on keeping your passport safe, which covers the preparation that makes this whole process faster.

The order of the steps

1. Search properly, once. Ten focused minutes. Bags, safe, yesterday's jacket, the reception desk, wherever you last showed it. Most "lost" passports are in the room.

2. Report it to the local police if it was stolen. For US citizens a police report is not compulsory. The State Department says police reports "are not mandatory but can help confirm the circumstances of the loss or theft." Get one anyway if you can. It helps with insurance claims and with any card fraud that follows, and it takes the ambiguity out of the consular conversation.

3. Contact the nearest embassy or consulate. Find yours at usembassy.gov. Every US embassy and consulate has an after-hours duty officer, though outside working hours they handle life-or-death emergencies rather than passport paperwork. A lost passport on a Saturday is usually a Monday morning appointment.

4. Report the passport cancelled. The dedicated form is DS-64. The fastest route is the online form filler, which the State Department says cancels the passport within one business day and sends you a confirmation email. Mailing the paper DS-64 instead takes weeks, which is no use to you abroad.

5. Apply for the replacement. The application form is DS-11, completed in person at the embassy or consulate. It asks when and where the passport was lost. If your DS-11 does not carry enough detail about the loss, the State Department says it may pause the application and ask you for DS-64 as well.

Photo by Abai K on Unsplash

What to bring to the embassy

Bring what you can. Consular staff deal with this constantly, and the State Department says that even if you cannot present all of these documents, staff will "do their best to help you get a new passport quickly."

• Completed DS-11, with the details of where and when the passport was lost or stolen.
• Proof of citizenship. A birth certificate, or a photocopy of your missing passport. The State Department names the photocopy specifically, which is the clearest possible argument for taking one before you travel.
• Photo ID. A driver's licence, an expired passport, or other government-issued identification.
• A passport photo, 2x2 inches or 5x5 cm. Availability varies by post, so assume you need to bring or source it yourself.
• A copy of the police report, if you filed one.
• Your travel itinerary, from your airline or your train tickets.

If you cannot show proof of citizenship at all, ask for a free file search. The State Department says this is available while you are abroad and can help you get an emergency passport. That free search is specific to the situation you are in. Applying at home without evidence of citizenship carries a $150 file search fee instead.

Full passport or emergency passport

These are two different documents and the choice usually makes itself.

A full-validity replacement is a normal ten-year adult passport. On speed, be careful what you plan around. Most embassies do not issue passports at weekends or on public holidays. The State Department's guidance is that if you reach the duty officer with a genuine emergency outside working hours, a replacement will in most cases be issued the next business day. That is the emergency route rather than a promise about routine turnaround, so ask your own post what it can actually do for your dates.

An emergency limited-validity passport is issued when there is not enough time for the full one. The State Department says it is valid for up to one year, and that you can exchange it for a full-validity passport after your trip.

One warning that matters more than it sounds. Emergency passports issued by some countries do not contain a chip, and a number of destinations will not accept a non-chipped document for entry or transit. Australia states this explicitly about its own emergency passports and tells travellers to check the requirements of every country they plan to enter or transit through. If you are routing home through a third country, confirm your emergency document will be accepted before you rely on it.

What it costs

Fees for a US passport, as published by the State Department:

Item	Fee
Application fee, adult book	$130
Execution or acceptance fee	$35
Typical total	$165
Expedited service	$60 extra
File search when applying at home without proof of citizenship	$150

Replacement passports generally cost the same as any other passport. If you are the victim of a serious crime or a disaster and cannot pay, the State Department says you may qualify for a free emergency passport. That document has limited validity, and the regular fee still applies if you want a full-validity one instead.

These were the published fees on 24 August 2026, on a page the State Department last updated on 19 March 2026. Consular fees change, so check the official fee page before you budget.

Photo by James Kenny on Unsplash

If you are not American

United Kingdom. Apply online for an Emergency Travel Document. It is usually valid for one single or return journey and lets you travel through a maximum of five countries. You need to be outside the UK, to need to travel within six weeks, and to have held a valid UK passport issued on or after 1 January 2006. The application costs £125 as of 24 August 2026 and is not refundable. It is usually ready to collect two working days after you apply, though gov.uk lists several situations that push it out to several weeks.

Canada. Contact the nearest Government of Canada office and report the loss using form PPTC 203, submitted with a standard passport application. There is an extra administrative fee of CAD 45 for replacing a valid lost or stolen passport, on top of the normal fee. Consular offices can issue a temporary passport, CAD 125.75 since 31 March 2026, or in some cases an emergency travel document, though Canada notes that emergency passport services are not available at every Canadian office abroad. The Emergency Watch and Response Centre is on +1 613-996-8885, collect where available, or 1-800-387-3124 toll-free from the US and Canada, or [email protected]. Start at travel.gc.ca.

Australia. Contact your nearest Australian mission or the 24 hour Consular Emergency Centre on +61 2 6261 3305 from overseas, or 1300 555 135 within Australia. An emergency passport is valid for up to one year, has no chip, and costs AUD 265 as of 1 January 2026, plus the AUD 189 overseas surcharge for adults. You can apply for a full passport at the same time and collect it back in Australia. Start at smartraveller.gov.au.

Australian and Canadian fees adjust on annual cycles, and gov.uk publishes no change history for the UK fee, so confirm the current figure at the source rather than trusting a number in a blog post.

What consulates can and cannot do

Worth calibrating expectations before you walk in.

They can issue you a travel document, contact family on your behalf, and point you to local police and medical services. The UK Foreign Office says that if you have been the victim of crime, it may sometimes be able to accompany you to the police station to report it. Read that as a possibility rather than a service you can count on.

They cannot get your money back, pay your hotel bill, override a local police investigation, or make an airline rebook you for free. Canada's own list of what it cannot do for travellers whose belongings were stolen includes replacing stolen money or paying your expenses.

Should you freeze your credit?

Probably not for a passport on its own. Almost certainly yes if your bag went too.

Here is the reasoning, because this is one of those questions where the honest answer is more useful than the cautious one. A US passport does not contain your Social Security number. The data page carries your name, date of birth, place of birth, sex, nationality, passport number, issue and expiry dates, photo and signature. None of that is enough to open a credit account in the US, because a lender needs an SSN. The State Department also points out that "No one can travel using only a U.S. passport number," since the physical document has to be presented.

So a stolen passport by itself is a weaker route into your finances than a stolen wallet. The FTC's own guidance reflects that. It says a credit freeze "is always a good idea, but it's even more important if your Social Security number or other information is exposed in a data breach or if an identity thief has misused your information," and it does not list passport theft as a trigger.

What changes the answer is what else was in the bag. If your cards, driver's licence, or anything carrying your SSN went with the passport, you are in genuine identity-theft territory and a freeze is the right move today rather than next week.

Photo by Avery Evans on Unsplash

If you decide to freeze, the mechanics are better than most people expect. Since a federal law took effect in September 2018, a security freeze is free at all three nationwide bureaus, and the same law sets deadlines: online or by phone, the bureau must place a freeze within one business day and lift it within one hour. By mail it is three business days either way.

You have to do it at each bureau separately:

• Equifax, or (888) 298-0045
• Experian, or (888) 397-3742
• TransUnion, or (888) 909-8872

A freeze does not affect your credit score, and it does not stop you using accounts you already have. It only blocks new credit being opened in your name. Lifting it temporarily to apply for something is routine.

A one-year fraud alert is the lighter option, also free, and it has one practical advantage: you only contact one bureau and it has to tell the other two. It asks lenders to verify your identity rather than blocking access outright.

The part that matters if you are already abroad. Freezing online is straightforward if you already have accounts with the three bureaus. Setting those accounts up for the first time from a hotel in another country is where people get stuck, because identity verification can involve a text message to a US mobile number. Create all three accounts before you travel, when it takes ten minutes and nothing is on fire.

If you are not American: the UK equivalent is Cifas Protective Registration, which flags your details for extra checks rather than blocking credit outright, and costs £30 for two years. You have to live at the address you apply for, and the payment card has to be in your name with a billing address matching that application address. Canada's Financial Consumer Agency of Canada recommends fraud alerts at Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, and says the bureaus may charge a fee, so it is not reliably free the way the US freeze is. Australia gives you a free 21 day ban period on your credit report, extendable on request with no limit on the number of extensions.

One thing worth knowing about what reporting the passport actually achieves. Cancellation is not only about the booklet in your hand. The State Department's point is that once you have reported it, your next foreign destination may deny you entry if you try to travel on that passport, because the cancellation attaches to the passport number. That is the real protection, and it is why reporting it quickly matters more than anything you do with your credit file.

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

The ten minutes that make all this easier

Do these before you leave and the process above roughly halves in length.

Photograph the photo page. Officially recommended by both the US State Department and the Government of Canada. It is also accepted by the State Department as proof of citizenship when the original is gone, which makes it the single most valuable thing on this list.

Photograph the back of the booklet as well. This one is our recommendation rather than official guidance. Newer US passports print additional data on the reverse. Having the whole document recorded costs you nothing.

Store the images in something encrypted. Also our advice. A passport scan sitting in an auto-syncing photo library is a copy of your identity in every account you have ever signed into, which is the opposite of what you want when the thing you are protecting against is theft.

A password manager with encrypted file storage is the right home for it. If you already pay for one, use that. If you do not, NordPass includes encrypted file storage on its paid tiers, which is enough to hold your passport scan, your insurance policy and your booking confirmations behind a single password.

Leave a copy with someone at home. The US, Canada and Australia all advise this.

Carry a spare passport photo or two. Our advice, not official. The State Department asks for a photo with DS-11 and availability varies by embassy post. Two photos in a document wallet weigh nothing and remove a whole errand from a bad day.

Save the emergency numbers somewhere that is not your phone. If the bag went, the phone probably went with it. A card in a different pocket, or a note with your travel companion, is the backup.

Enrol in STEP if you are American. It does not speed up passport replacement and it does not waive fees. What it does is let the embassy reach you, and reach your emergency contact, and it is how the State Department sends alerts during a crisis. It is free and takes a couple of minutes.

The short version

• Search once, properly. Reporting it is irreversible.
• Report a theft to local police and get the report if you can. It is recommended, not required.
• Contact the embassy, then file DS-64 online to cancel, then apply on DS-11 in person.
• Budget roughly $165 for a full replacement, and ask your embassy what its actual turnaround is for your dates rather than assuming next day.
• Ask for an emergency passport if you have to fly sooner, and check your transit countries accept a non-chipped document.
• US emergency line: 1-888-407-4747 from the US and Canada, +1 202-501-4444 from overseas.
• Freeze your credit if your cards or ID went too. For a passport alone it is a sensible precaution rather than an emergency, and it is free either way.

Everything above was checked on 24 August 2026 against travel.state.gov, gov.uk, travel.gc.ca, passports.gov.au, smartraveller.gov.au, the FTC, Cifas and the OAIC. Fees and phone numbers are the two things worth reconfirming at the source, because both change and both matter when you are relying on them.

The best time to read this was before you left. The second best is now. Our country guides carry the local emergency numbers for your destination, including the tourist police line where one exists, and prompt you to look up and save your own embassy's contact details before you go. That last step is one we ask you to do rather than one we can do for you, because which embassy serves you depends on your nationality and on where in the country you are.