Last Updated: 02/03/2020 | February 3rd, 2020
I’m a man of routine. Whenever I fly, I put my boarding pass in my passport, and then put both of those in the magazine pocket in front of my seat. I flip through the bad in-flight magazine. I put it back. I tune out to my music. Grab my passport and exit the plane.
Except this time, I missed a step.
Stepping out of the restricted area at the airport, I suddenly had an awful realization.
“Oh shit!”
I had left my passport on the plane.
Rushing to the airline’s office, they said they would call the plane to get it. It hadn’t been more than 15 minutes, so I figured there was a good chance it was still going to be there.
Except it wasn’t. They couldn’t find it. Maybe someone had turned it into the security office. The cleaning crews usually hand things in there. I figured given how quickly they clean and turn around planes on low-cost airlines that seemed the most likely. Off I went.
Except the security office didn’t have it. And when I returned to the airline’s main office, they still didn’t have it, and now the plane was already on its way back to Copenhagen.
Defeated, I made my way into Amsterdam. I called the security office and the airline again, but my passport was nowhere to be found.
It was gone.
And along with it, nine years of stamps. I had added pages to the passport twice as I accumulated those stamps. Now they are gone…and I was devastated.
What to Do When You Lose Your Passport
Losing your passport is really just a big inconvenience. It’s actually really easy to get a new one.
However, the new one the US Embassy issues while you are overseas is an emergency temporary passport. These passports have limited validity of either three or six months. They are basically only good long enough to get you home and aren’t meant to travel around on long-term.
To get a new passport, you need to do the following.
- Go fill out a police report for your lost passport.
- Go to the State Department website, print out this form and this one. Fill them out.
- Take the forms to the US Embassy or Consulate during morning hours.
- Wait in line.
- Wait in line some more.
- Show the official your police report, forms, proof of your upcoming travel plans, and a passport-sized photo.
- Read every sign made by the US Department of State while you wait even more.
- Pay the fee (about $120 USD).
- Go home and eat lunch.
- Come back in the afternoon.
- Wait in line again.
- Get your new temporary passport.
- Try not to lose this one either.
After filing the paperwork and paying the fee, later that afternoon you will have a nice new emergency passport. Since most countries want passports to be valid for six months after entry, these passports aren’t good to travel on.
However, in Europe, that rule is waived, so you can travel around a bit before you need to get a real, 10-year passport.
Unfortunately, those take time, especially when you aren’t in the US. Outside the United States, they take 10 to 14 days.
Inside the US, you can usually get a brand new 10-year validity passport the same day you apply for one if your travel is urgent enough. But you know the government — sometimes things are slow.
And that is what really screwed me.
See, last weekend I was supposed to fly to New York City for my friend’s wedding. I was just going for the weekend and then Monday afternoon (today), I was supposed to fly back to Europe.
The trip didn’t give me a lot of time to get a new 10-year passport. Any delay and I’d miss my flight — and my birthday plans for Greece would be delayed and ruined.
But that wasn’t the real problem. If I was just flying back into the European Union, I could probably have gotten by on my emergency passport as long as I showed them proper travel plans and proof that I had enough time to get a new passport. They are pretty easy to please in Europe.
But I was flying through England. And as the guy at the US embassy said, “those guys are total hardasses” (I wonder if that is the official government stance?).
Having flown through London enough and having almost been denied entry for not having a printed version of my outbound flight, I know they are indeed total “hardasses.”
Everyone, including the embassy, recommended that I avoid trying to re-enter the UK on a temporary passport. Going out would be easy. Coming back, I might face problems.
My gut agreed.
And with no real idea (everyone has a different story!) about how long getting a new 10-year passport could take while in NYC, I couldn’t risk it. The passport office in New York City requires appointments and make no guarantee of a same-day turnaround.
So I missed my weekend in New York City. I missed my friend’s wedding. (She was not happy.) I missed a lot of things.
All because I spaced out and left my passport on the plane.
But on the bright side, at least I now know the process for replacing your passport overseas.
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sabrina
i would cry if i lost my passport. i don’t have an accumulation of stamps or anything, but losing my passport is one of my biggest fears. i’m sorry you lost yours!
NomadicMatt
Thanks!
Chris
Well, after this week I can only sympathize. I live in Spain and am a Spanish resident but hold a uk passport. Caught a ferry to the uk for a business trip and lost my passport. Now I am told that as I have lost my passport in the uk I cannot get an emergency travel document to allow me to return to Spain.
If I was anywhere else in the world no problem, but as it was lost in the uk then I will need to wait a week!
Trapped in the uk and all I want is to go home and join my family….. Must pay more attention I hear you say.
Traveling anywhere broadens ones horizons, the learning never stops, but I am a bit taken aback at the British attitude to helping its own citizens.
David
Don’t worry Matt, you’re not an idiot, as you put it. Can really happen to anybody, although I can imagine that the 9 years of collected stamps really sucks… as well has having missed the wedding.
In the end, life goes on.
Safe travels in Greece,
David in Greece 🙂
Aurora Marinari
thank you sooo much for posting how to go about getting an emergency one! that is vital information that isn’t well know. thanks again! hopefully I’ll never need it but just in case…
Rebecca
Oy, things have changed in the last few years! My sister lost her passport in Israel (of all places!) and spent a day getting a replacement. Back in 2004, the replacements looks exactly like a normal passport (except maybe half the pages), were valid for 12 months and cost the same as a new 10 yr passports so when you got home and applied for a new 10/9 year passport, essentially it was “free” because you already paid the fee when getting your replacement.
And I am sorry, but putting it in the seat pocket in front of you??!?! The moment I read that, my sympathy went out the window. Doing that was an accident waiting to happen. No matter how many times you fly, always have your passport on your person! I always fly with zipped pockets for this reason. Or at the very least (and still would make me nervous) in a bag that you put under your seat and KNOW you aren’t going to forget. Never have it separate from everything else your carrying.
Oh well, lesson learned!!! Hopefully this will save someone elses ass someday.
NomadicMatt
I know. It’s my fault. I don’t expect any sympathy!
Deej
I was wondering why you tweeted about having an emergency passport…this explains it. Sorry for the headache…Hope you’re on to better things now:)
Jeremy Branham
So sorry about the passport and missed wedding. I know I poked fun at you a little about how Amsterdam wasn’t a bad place to lose a passport but this really sucks. I know missing the wedding was a bummer but I might be more devastated about losing all those stamps. It is definitely a pain to go through all of that but at least you were in Europe and not some place that would have REALLY been inconvenient. I guess that’s the bright side of looking at it.
But honestly, which part upsets you the most – the wedding or the stamps? I have to go with the stamps but granted she wasn’t my friend! 🙂
NomadicMatt
hmmmm I think I might be more upset about the wedding. I can get more stamps but a wedding happens once in a lifetime!
Dean
That’s possibly my worst fear while traveling, especially if it’s a less developed country. It sucks how something so small can screw up all of your plans. But at least you got to make a post and provide information on something that you probably wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. 😉
NomadicMatt
Every cloud has a silver lining!
Lisa
That is my worst nightmare! It would be one thing to lose your passport with a really good story to tell, like a kangaroo running off with it or something, but my own human error- that would drive me insane! Especially loosing all my stamps! Thanks for the good info for what to do in case of and the wake up call to us all to check, check, and triple check that we have our documents in our hot little hands!!!
Will
so….while living in Taiwan, my passport was in a cargo pocket of a pair of shorts that my (then girlfriend, now wife) put in the laundry. When she pulled it out of the laundry and it was in a little blue ball…well, there were a few very tense moments, but the reality is, like you say it’s really nothing more than a big inconvenience. The equivalent of a consulate here put aside their bureaucratic inefficiency for a moment and issued me a same-day emergency passport (we were traveling to Cambodia in like 5 days). I did manage to get a one-year passport.
With the length of time required, and the bureaucracy involved in getting a full-validity, 10-year passport, I haven’t bothered to take care of that yet, and that may come back to bite me as we are leaving from here to Peru in 3 days with a short stopover in the U.S….we’ll see, and I’ve got my fingers crossed.
NomadicMatt
I think that might be worse. At least I can keep hope alive that my stamps are somewhere out there….yours were just gone for good!
Pierre
It happened to me once and you definitly feel so stupid when you see the inmigration guy to explain that you probably forget it in the plane. They looked for the passport and didn’t find it. Fortunately they allowed me to enter with the other papers I had and they finally found it a few days later.
But I was quite lucky. Just for all the stamps I have I hope it won’t happen again. And it’s such a pain in the a… when you have to make a new one outside home.
NomadicMatt
Did you enter the UK?
Candice
I lost mine in a remote part of Thailand. It took about a week to get a temporary one and get on my way. The local police weren’t much help, I was really frustrated. I even tracked down the TukTuk where I believed it was lost.
That was like 7 years ago, i’m still bitter. 😉
NomadicMatt
This will be a scar I carry forever.
Courtney
I completely understand the anger & sadness that comes with loosing your passport. I lost mine last week and was traveling the country and it still hasn’t been located 🙁 I lost 8 years of stamps and I’m so bummed about it. I wish I had never brought it to Colorado but I always travel with it in case I loose my license or something. Dumb choice. I made a wrong step somewhere when boarding after a few beers and now it’s gone. So my traveling heart goes out to you guys!
Michela
Loosing my passport is the worst fear I have, that’s why I wear it always on my body as a “second skin” 🙂 Carrying a zip bag tight on your waste is sometimes annoying, I know, but you once you get used to it, you develop a natural touch for it. And yes, that’s the only way to prevent loosing your passport. Sorry about all the inconveniences you went through by loosing your passport. But as Rebecca said, by putting it on the seat back in front of you it was an accident waiting to happen…as we say in german “we never stop learning”…
NomadicMatt
What would life be like if we stopped learning! Good expression!
Christy
Oh that is a horrible feeling! I thought mine was a bummer when I had to replace my passport b/c of a name change….all those stamps gone. But yours, oh man I could only imagine. I feel for you. And then dealing with the gov is never fun.
NomadicMatt
Actually, I’ve been to embassy in many countries and have always found things to be pretty easy. Other than some waiting, everything is always a smooth process.
Gillian
I was surprised when such a seasoned traveler such as you said you lost your passport. But I like to think it lends a little credence to some of the stupid things we, as less seasoned travelers, do. However, I do wish you a quick resolution and back on track with your plans. 🙂
NomadicMatt
If comments were like Facebook, I would give this a thumbs up!
Leslie Bateman
I can appreciate how bummed you were to lose your passport and the stamps. Sorry that happened. But Matt, as an international flight attendant with 34 years of service, I have to tell you it happens frequently to people who put their passport anywhere BUT in their bag, immediately after showing it. I have helped many passengers in tears search for their passport after a LONG flight, when they are exhausted. It’s time to learn a new habit.
NomadicMatt
I accept full responsibility for this mishap!
Sally
Ah, that’s terrible.. I’m glad that you were able to get the new one though.. but it’s too bad about the wedding. I hope that your birthday goes smoothly 😀
Sebastian
Shit man, that must have sucked!!! I once lost my passport after all the stress of getting a new one about a month later police called me and said they found it in a park about 200 kms away from where I actually lost it…
NomadicMatt
Lucky….lucky. No one from the airline ever called me. 🙁
Amy
Did having a photocopy of your passport expedite getting the replacement?
NomadicMatt
Yeah, I had a photocopy of it but they never asked for it.
Dorian
YIKES……………..
I left my wedding gift from my father in law in that damn pocket.. I realized fast enough and ran back; got my “Rolex”.. That would have been very painful..
wow
Mariposa
Sorry to hear that you lost your passport with all these stamps!! It must have been really painful 🙁 You might have to keep traveling to get them all again 😉
NomadicMatt
I have a new passport to fill and by god, I’m going to fill it!
Amelie
Sorry to hear about that… I feel sorry for you friend’s wedding and also for the stamps…
I got pretty lucky in 2002, when I lost my passaport in Barcelona, actually I was feeling home and didn’t relaize that it was missing… one day I was searching for and the next day, before I went to the Brazilian Consulate, a woman saw me and she had it!!! She recognized me and went her home to pick it up… she kept it for five days (I’m really not kidding). I was not that worried because after Barcelona I was traveling back home, the only thing valuable there was my USA visa.
NomadicMatt
That’s a very good story!
Amelie Amaral
A very good story, but difficult to believe…lol
Kristin Luna
Awww man, that sucks! Losing a passport is akin to losing a limb in our world.
NomadicMatt
It sure is. I just miss the stamps. I like looking at them.
Farnoosh
Matt, my dear, I can only imagine how you feel because I know I get attached to my passport – I was thrilled that they give the old one back when you get a new one but you KNOW you have those stamps. It’s just a material possession. Andy tells me to just take pictures of things I like and let them go if I lose them. And even that’s not necessary.
When we travel, Andy never lets me hold on to my own passport – he is paranoid. I would never leave a passport outside my body though. As in, I would always be on my body, in a zipped pouch somewhere because if you fall asleep and if someone saw you put it in that pocket – well the world is nice and all but passports are a rare commodity and they are worth money – then they could snatch it. I don’t know; maybe I am paranoid. But I feel for you and you are far from an idiot. Big hugs!
NomadicMatt
I know. I’m hoping one day it will turn up and I can just stare at my passport stamps and ogle them.
bruin
so sorry this happened but that’s life i guess. as long as you are safe, healthy, and alive, God is GOOD. yup the most important thing while abroad is THAT passport. You can always make it up to your friend later.
NomadicMatt
I’m feeling better about it now that the process is over. But I’m still sad about missing the wedding!
NomadicMatt
It is the stamps that are the biggest emotional hit.
Andi
I totally feel your pain. I had my passport stolen in Spain. I wanted to die. It was my most beloved possession. So big hugs and just remember you will survive!
Carrie
That sucks! So sorry! But I would prefer to lose my passport than the laptop 🙁
Matt
I “lost” my passport once, along with my entire Backpack! Actually a couple of girls decided to take an American souvenir with them from my Hostel. Anyway I can relate, it’s definitely an odd feeling being alone in a foreign country with no money, clothes, and no way to leave. Good advice on getting a new passport however. I was in Ecuador and the Embassy gave me a few coupons for free Big Mac combos haha.
vira
really sorry to know about this , Matt.
well now you’ve got a new passport to fill, maybe that means you’re not gonna have a break from traveling like you’ve planned in a year from now 😛
NomadicMatt
I’ll be working extra hard to fill this one!
NomadicMatt
I think they are roughly about even.
Lily
So sorry — I feel your pain!! I would be beyond devastated if I lost my passport — it’s my most prized possession along with my wedding rings…9 years of travels, 1 UK visa, stamps and countless memories…
Peggy Curtis
How do I get a replacement passport? I have looked & cannot find it anywhere. The last time I used it was in 2000.
Atusa
I feel for you. I am a girl of routine. And I recently lost my passport by leaving it on the plane.
It gets worse. I am an exchange student in the United States, and my visa (i loved my visa. it was so pretty) and my I-94 document was in it. I am leaving in about two months, and I am already in the process of getting a new passport. My I-94 however, I have no time to replace (this is the document that is the evidence for you leaving the States before your visa runs out).. Takes about 5 months to get a new one. 330 dollars too.. But since I have no time, my student adviser (OIE at the college) and Customs and Border protection told me, that it all depends on how good I can convince the officer at the airport, when leaving – that the copies of my I-94 and visa (that I luckily am in position of) are legit. This is a very uncomfortable situation.. “am I in trouble?” – “naah, it depends on how well you can convince the authorities that you are telling the truth”.. great. Especially when you have to apply for a new visa next year.
How awful a person do you have to be, to steal someones passport? For everyone reading this. If you steal peoples passports, you WILL go to hell. There’s a special place in hell for people like you passport-thieves.
Gotta go. I feel like punching my pillow.
NomadicMatt
Well, maybe they will cut you a break since you are leaving the country! It’s not like you are trying to stay!
Atusa
Do you get paranoid about it being used for fraud? I’m getting paranoid. I’ve filed a police-report though.
NomadicMatt
Yeah, I filed a police report and the passport is void now anyways.
Atusa
So did I. So nothing can harm you as long as you have filed the report? They wont stop me next year when I am visiting, and tell me that I am wanted for some insane crime that I did not commit?
… Are these stupid questions? I am young and inexperienced. I hope that makes it more okay.
Penny
Thieves take the picture off. They don’t try to pass for you physically. They put their picture either over yours or get your picture off entirely (depending on which country’s passport gets stolen – some countries’ passports have the original passport holder’s picture glued on to the leather part so it’s easier for a thief to peel that off and insert their picture instead – Ireland’s come to mind). I went to the UK to teach in EAST London; so I came across lots of people who could tell me things like that once mine got stolen, trust me.
Atusa
By the way, thanks for posting this. I was feeling more miserable before I read this. At least now I know that someone did the exact same thing.
Dave Brett
Made me want to take photos of my passport pages just incase! I once did the same thing and left it in the magazine net but luckily my Gf triple searches! wow close shave. Sorry for your lose
Hannah Tangi
Matt – This makes me feel a lot better about my passport getting stolen (pick-pocketed) in Madrid. I was about to fly home after living in Spain for 4 months, although it was actually my whole wallet so I had 5 euro to my name. It ended up all working out and I made it home the next day, but I can relate! Especially on the years of lost stamps…
Ishmeal
Hello if I lost my passport out side the u.s..and I happend to have scan a copy of my passport can the copy get me back home safely?
If not what would I need to do in other to get back home dafely..
thank you
Penny
No. Even a scan printed out in full colour – you’d still have to go have a physical passport even a “temporary” one. A full-colour scan will just make it go smoother when you reported the passport lost to your Embassy and applied for a new one. Without that they have to look you up in the system.
Kevin Bates
“I’m a man of routine. Whenever I fly, I put my boarding pass in my passport, and then put both of those in the magazine pocket in front of my seat. I”
not sure why you would DO that, ? why not put the passport/boarding pass into your carry-on bag/luggage? maybe in a inner pocket for easy access?
Kevin Bates
@ embarassed girl: ‘But since I have no time, my student adviser (OIE at the college) and Customs and Border protection told me, that it all depends on how good I can convince the officer at the airport, when leaving – that the copies of my I-94 and visa (that I luckily am in position of) are legit. This is a very uncomfortable situation.. “am I in trouble?” – “naah, it depends on how well you can convince the authorities that you are telling the truth”.. great. Especially when you have to apply for a new visa next year.
How awful a person do you have to be, to steal someones passport? For everyone reading this. If you steal peoples passports, you WILL go to hell. There’s a special place in hell for people like you passport-thieves.
Gotta go. I feel like punching my pillow.”
let’s be honest, it depends on how “hot” of a girl you are and how sad and maybe ‘flirty’ you can seem (if a straight guy is the officer) if a guy does it and has a straight male officer he will be S.O.L.
the people in poor countries that make $20 a month probably don’t feel ‘guilty’ about taking things from peopel they see as “rich gringos/foreigners” coming to their country, and who are often arrogant/ignorant and look down on the locals, as well
just saying, the stereotype of “the Ugly American” (or, European/Cdn./Ozzie, etc.) lives on, not all are that way but a good % are. so the people there figure you make in a day what they make in a year and they are entitled to help themselves to your stuff. doesn’t make it ‘right’ but I guess being close to starvation can warp your ‘morals’ & ‘values’ ?
Penny
Really – and those people are in East London, Walthamstow? But you’re probably right, as I was treated like an “American” for two years straight in the UK, having had my CANADIAN passport stolen out of locked luggage in a supposedly-locked room. In other words, someone broke in to the room and ransacked my luggage when I wasn’t there.
Now I sincerely HOPE beyond all hope that the original poster’s comment that “continental” Europe is easier to please than the UK, still holds true, as I head for Belgium for my PhD in Mathematica. Computational Biophysics – to make the world stop treating me like I “don’t look qualified in Maths” and asking me “can you even DO Maths” when they see me. Yes, because in some parts of Europe higher education is either FREE or a mere €357 a year…if I had to pay for a PhD I wouldn’t even consider it just because everywhere I go I get nailed with this “your Master’s and law degrees were ‘too long ago’, thanks for stopping by” sort of rubbish. And I also hope beyond all hope that Belgium will be, as people on campus assure me, “nicer than the French” (at least the French-speaking part) because I’m sensing that the French would treat me like an “American” with all the nasty assumptions that go with THAT, as well. Maybe countries which see the same amount of Canadians as Americans….where the hell ever THOSE are. Swiss people tend to immediately treat me better when I tell them I’m Canadian (and NOT Quebec), so there’s hope somewhere. Now, the aftermath – 8-10 years from now – is that I will have to find some of France’s former “colonies” somewhere in the world where all the Mathematicians and Physicists look more like me – like South America or the South Pacific – so that I can GET and KEEP the damn job in the field but that’s almost a decade away. To study without having to worry about not being able to get a job because of the colour of my skin – for 8-10 years, and THEN deal with it later….ah, the life.
Alexandros
I can understand this feeling.
Greek Passport. To get a new one = 180 Euro, 2 weeks waiting-time (after 5 years the same action)
But also you Matt should know, that we can be lucky, that we have a Passport, the option to travel…
Once the Police stopped me in Slovenia *Europe* because I drove with my bike on the highway… The cop behaved like Robocop and he said: You can pay now 150 Euro penalty or I will take it with me and you pick it up in Ljubljana *capital, at this moment 100 km far away and on the last 900 km by bike I spent 50 Euro / How should I find now 150 to pay that shit…)
I did not really answer… he went to his car and drove away… I looked like you on the picture from this article…
Thanks for remembering me to this time in my life… to this moment. Was 2011. Summer. First long bike-trip… *see page*
All the best dude and don’ t forget… also if we lose this document… we will get a new one and then we can travel… most of the people on this world, will never get this paper, will never have the possibility to do what we can do…
So, all of us, should really enjoy life and if someone is complaining… he should thing before he is doing this…
Peace and out.
All the best on your ways.
Alexandros, actual in Serbia, Belgrade [Europe]
Mark
Hey Matt,
I empathize with you completely as my passport was stolen just two days ago in the secure terminal of the airport in Manila.
I was re-issued an emergency passport.
Now I worry about fraud (both impersonation and financial) Has anyone who has had their passports stolen or lost experienced any of these problems?
Penny
No, I’m not worried. No one in their right minds would want to impersonate me. My credit is so far in the toilet from law school that, like I said, any thief would have to be out of their minds to try to get a job using MY identity. I can’t even get a job using my identity once people see me in person. My student loan and credit problems started WAY before my passport got stolen in London. In fact, I had gone over there in the first place because I couldn’t get a job in my own country or in the USA on my own identity once people see me and then run my credit – I jumped at the chance, an offer made over the phone sight-unseen, to teach Maths in a country where my ruined credit couldn’t follow me. Then they saw me when I got there, hemmed and hawed, decided I only “looked” qualified to teach English, and naturally they didn’t want Canadians (they said “Americans” the racist bastards that they are) teaching English, pushed my Maths teaching qualifications aside and didn’t even look at them, and showed me the door.
So yeah, I’m not worried about anyone else getting a JOB using my identity.
Mel
Lol Im also an idiot, but the difference is I didnt even lose that shit travelling, I lost it at home, and cant find that crap. I wonder if it was stolen… ?
Lemastre
I lost my passport in London several year ago, and the process the embassy guy on the telephone described for replacing it sounded exactly like the process for getting it in the first place, including the fee and the two-week wait. I.e., he didn’t mention any procedure like my trotting over to his place and picking up a temporary one of some sort. I didn’t have to pursue this, because within 24 hours I found the passport in the office of the house manager at a theatre I’d attended the night the passport went missing. Some considerate audience-member had found it beneath a seat.
Victoria
Yikes!
I haven’t lost my passport but I almost did! I’m British but I live in Berlin and I was on my way “home”. I was in London for a long weekend break and I happened to have a few hours spare before I had to take my flight so I went to the museum!
I had a great time and then just before I left, I went to the bathroom and put my handbag on the hook on the back of the door. While washing my hands I realized I couldn’t see my handbag. It’s furry and pink! OMG. I began to shake and went back into the cubicles. First of all, the bathroom is always packed with queues of girls and secondly, I couldn’t remember which cubicle I had actually been in!
I checked as many as I could causing havoc to everyone then in tears I went to security who tried their best to calm me down. They went back into the bathroom with me and right at the very far end of the bathroom was my furry, pink handbag. Passport and everything intact!
jonny
Matt, we’ve all been there. I also put my passport in the pouch of the chair in front of mine and got off my flight to Naples blissfully unaware that it was still there. Fortunately, as I had flown from London, I had to go through passport control for entering the Schengen Zone – and so I realised within about three minutes of getting off the plane. Cue a mad-dash to the shuttle bus to communicate in my non-existant Italian what had happened. A couple of minutes later, a chap from the airport came driving by with my treasured passport. It sucks that you lost yours, but I’m sure you’ve gained plenty more stamps in your new passport since you wrote this article!
Marvie
I came across this blog so I thought of sharing my personal experience of losing a passport in HK airport. I traveled with 4 girls(8,6,6&3) in Sept2013. It was their first time to fly so it was a bit exciting for them. Everyone thinks it was so brave for me to do it alone leaving hubbie behind in Australia. Well, I did it with a big hiccup! I discovered I lost my passport just few minutes before boarding our connecting flight to my home country. It was a terrible feeling seeing my daughters crying with fear that we will be stuck in the airport. Since we will be boarding on Cathay Pacific flight, I looked for the transfer desk and told them about the problem. Glad that they were very helpful to find it, they rang the CX plane we boarded that was leaving in few minutes. We anxiously waited in front of the desk and few minutes later the staff called me and told me that my passport was found!!! OMG, I can’t explain how relieved I felt at that time. Our 5 passports were bunched up together inside the pocket of our carry on bag so no idea how it came out. What I can only remember is that we had such a turbulent landing that 3 of the girls were sick and vomitting at the same time that I had to grab tissues and towels from my bag — imagine how busy I was when that happened!
A CX staff accompanied us all the way to the gate. Half of the passengers had boarded already and since I had some children, we didn’t have to be in the queue so we boarded straight away.
Well, I knew I secured the passports well but obviously it wasn’t. Lesson learnt– never fly without my husband! We are more secured when he is around and that includes our passports 🙂
Recalling this story makes me ask myself… What if passport wasn’t found at all? 🙂
Thanking Matt, for the availability of this blog 🙂
Jeremy
Yep, in that boat right now. Had our bag stolen in Puno, Peru with my SLR, computer, and passports. Lost our videos from the last 11 months but luckily have all my photos backed up; mostly hi-res but a few months low-res on Facebook.
About to go through the hassle of getting an emergency passport in Lima (it has to be 1-year since we’re going to Ecuador in a few days and they require 6 months validity) AND get to jump through the hoops of trying to get into Machu Picchu tomorrow without a passport.
Luckily we have a police report, copies of our passports, driver’s licenses (thank God they were in my wallet), student IDs, and credit cards as proof of ID which our guide says will be fine- we hope.
The horrible thing is that 4 people had their bags stolen within the same hour at the bus station, one being us, and the police tried to get us to get on our bus and leave without a police report! They told us to go to Cusco and file there. We refused and got our report which we needed for our insurance since the belongings were worth, well, quite a bit of money.
Esly
Hey! do not worry about it!
I got mine one day before leaving!
I went to the passport agency in hpuston and had it mailed out and the mail man knocked at my door one day before!
pray alot!
Satheesh
We experienced something similar recently at Dubai where we left the flight with the passport in the front seat pouch and we remembered it as soon as we in the bus taking us to the Airport terminal. The bus driver asked us to talk to the security who in turn directed us to the Emirates staff at the counter who after trying repeatedly to reach someone in the plane had no luck. Our next flight was some 4.5 Hrs later to Perth and they assured us that they can arrange to have it send to our boarding point. We were send from the Emirates counter at the next boarding location to the Lost and Found and who in turn asked us to wait for the cleaning guys to hand over the same to the Airport staff. We were made to wait for some 3 Hours before they finally declared that the cleaning guys did not hand over any item and asked us to contact the Police. The officer at the Police station was very helpful and made some calls and asked me to wait for another half hour or so and finally was able to track it down. They refused to hold the flight or anything even when they got confirmation that it was our passport that got tracked and they had some 20 Minutes or so till the take off time. I had to shell out close to Four Grants for the onward flight rebooking and accommodation. The police officer suggested that it would have been much easier if I had approached them earlier than going to the Airlines staff for help and at the end I feel that might have been a better choice. The situation was all the more distressing as we had a toddler with us..
H
Notanoobie
The US State Dept has a program for crime victims, and that includes anyone who’s had their passport stolen while overseas. This status makes an embassy appt not necessary, and if you’ve got your ducks in a row (police rpt wi copies in hand, and hopefully photocopies of your stolen passport, DS-64 & DS-11, passport photo), you can go straight to the embassy and maybe have your emergency passport in as little as a couple of hours. Cost now $135, good for 1 yr, 5 visa pgs inside.
Notanoobie
Oh, and try hard to not let lightening strike again. They ask if you’ve ever had a passport lost or stolen before, and I don’t think you want to have to answer Yes…
Asad Nauman Khan
Thanks mate, it really helped me with my assignment. And I feel sorry for you.
Anna
Ah Matt, I hear you completely! This is the dilemma I’m in now – and I’m due to travel home to Australia in 3 weeks. The worst part is getting a replacement visa…and as you said, anything to do with the government is far from quick. Devastating!
Karen Campa
Question. When you report your passport stolen, the new one they issue will have an expiration date 10 years after it was issued correct? Even if the lost one had less time of validity?
Penny
Yes. They will basically cancel out the stolen one and issue a brand-new one and there will be a notation in the “visa” pages that says “this passport replaces a stolen passport.” But yes, the clock starts ticking all over again.
Brian Lau
I’m currently stuck in South Korea. Idk when I lost my passport but I have to wait 4 days until the US embassy opens. This was bad timing because of the Korean national holiday and I have to wait for the weekend to be over. I had plans with my girlfriend to go to Thailand and now I had to cancel almost all of the hotels and transportation in Thailand.
Is it possible to get an emergency passport right away if I’m using it for traveling or is my Thailand trip totally trashed and I would need to use this emergency passport to travel back to the US??
Penny
Well, you can’t do anything while the US Embassy isn’t open, obviously. But the only problem you’d have just walking around without your passport on you is that if you get arbitrarily stopped by the police and thrown in jail just for not having your passport on you. People in the UK told me that one all the time for the TWO YEARS I walked around with just proof of Irish citizenship “on me.” That I’d be “in trouble” without an American passport on me. I’m Canadian, by the way. It was just pure unadulterated racism on their part.
Penny
I’m Canadian, and my Canadian passport got stolen in the UK (in Walthamstow) not “lost,” and as the Canadian overseas embassies are even more “hard asses” than the US, I never did replace it. I’m an Irish citizen so I had to go to the Irish Embassy in London and get one of “theirs” there. Problem was, though, even though as an Irish citizen I qualified to do things like live, work, and even collect benefit there in the UK without a passport and with just some kind of “ID” card from Ireland, I could not get the time of day there without my Canadian passport. I would tell people I was Irish, show proof of that, and they’d STILL insist that I needed my Canadian passport for whatever it was I was trying to do. I was basically being treated like “American, needs a passport and a visa” not Irish. For two bloody years I put up with that. It’s funny that, because the Canadian government will issue a passport overseas but it comes out of Ottawa and that takes time. And required multiple trips to the Canadian High Commission – it got to the point where I was just “hanging out” in their library, for God’s sake. A lot. I finally gave up and went “back” to Canada on my Irish passport. Twelve years later I still haven’t dealt with the Canadian passport office. I’m in the US now and a passport isn’t required for Canadian Red Indians since we fall under the Jay Treaty meaning that all we need is our Treaty Status Card – at least, on land. I wouldn’t try to fly on it, even back to Canada. We can always drive. No matter how much the US and Canada crack down on each other’s citizens needing passports to go back and forth between the two countries, that Jay Treaty will still remain and if we are Red Indians we don’t have to. Now, after all these years, (I let my Irish one expire) I’m facing having to get another Irish passport and am thankful that they seem to be the only country left on Earth that still does them by MAIL –??! There are parts of the US and Canada where there are no Irish Embassies within 3,000 miles – so that’s good. What’s up with the other countries, though – even if their citizens are thousands of miles from the nearest of their country’s embassy, they have to go in-person? Wow. You know, those countries’ embassies should reimburse for that kind of mileage or pay for it up front!! I mean, they have to first GO to the nearest Embassy, say, Chicago or Toronto, and then stay there for the time it takes to go BACK to the Embassy and pick up the passport. That’s not only travel but accommodation, too. WOW. As to the obvious “human rights violations” issues there, I bet those countries’ governments would just say that it was their citizens’ own fault for living or being thousands of miles away from their Embassies, then. Yikes.
Ammar
Hi Guys,
Mine and my wife’s passports got stolen from a hotel in Amsterdam.
The embassy has given us new passports, but we need guidance on how to arrange the Schengen visa again on the passports, so that we can return home.
Anyone having any experience ?
evtuv
Posting this in case it helps anyone out in the future. Things went a little differently from some of the experiences others have posted (e.g. US), but this is one example of how things can go. YMMV.
Had some relatives from Europe (EU member) visiting me in Canada – their first-ever real trip outside their home country other than a couple of 2/3-day car trips over the border to countries that they didn\’t need passports to go to. Their flight was scheduled for 6am Tuesday. At about 7:30pm the previous day their passports (along with other ID and some other stuff) were stolen.
I live near a city (about 40 mins away) that has a consulate so, even though by the time we finished with the police it was about 10pm and we knew the consulate was closed for the day, we called it to see what time they opened the next morning and to see if maybe, MAYBE, we could get some morsel of useful information. At the end of the (long) message there was a bit that said \”In case of a serious emergency, please call 123-4567\”. So we called. Turns out that when the office is closed there is always someone on call (not necessarily working in the office) to deal with emergencies – and this qualified! 🙂
But then we were told they needed passport-sized photos (I think it was 1 each, but might have been 2) but it was now 10:30pm and virtually every store we could think of was closed except for a nearby Walmart which closed at 11pm. We took non-smiley photos in front of a white door with a cell phone and went to the Walmart to print the photos on their self-serve photo printers, but hit a wall when it turned out the machines were automatically turned off at 10pm by Walmart\’s headquarters. But after an explanation and a little begging we were able to convince the manager to make the effort to figure out how to unlock/turn one on. (The consulate staffer who answered the emergency phone also called us back at one point because she remembered that there was a photo booth at a shopping mall not particularly nearby, so it seems those pics would\’ve been good enough as well. I also think we would have been ok with home-printed photos on inkjet/laser photo paper, or maybe even regular white paper, but I don\’t know for sure. And it turned out it didn\’t matter if they were colour or black and white. They basically just needed something approximating a passport photo.)
We went to the consulate (by this time it was 12:30am), called the staffer who by that time had driven to the office from home, and the staffer let us in. She asked for my relatives\’ national ID cards but she was told they\’d been stolen along with the passports. She said that without the ID cards passports couldn\’t be issued until my relatives\’ info was confirmed by govt. officials back home and that would likely take at least a couple of days so there was no way they could fly out that day. I then pulled out copies of their passports and reminded the staffer that we\’d told her over the phone that we didn\’t have the ID cards but had copies of the passports. Yup, luckily I\’d taken photocopies of their passports when I\’d done online check-in that morning – no reason for doing so other than \”yeah, they leave in 20 hours but what the heck\”. Plus I can never remember their birthdays and it was easier to photocopy their passports than find a pen to write them down 🙂
An hour later my relatives had \”provisional passports\” – it would have been sooner but the staffer had to type out each one and every time a mistake was made she had to start a new form from the beginning. Each one was a letter/A4-sized page that contained the same info (including photo) as the info page of a passport, but each stated that it was only good for travel back home within 30 days of issue. Unlike what some others have experienced, these weren\’t regular passports or even passport-like booklets with a few pages – they were basically just emergency travel documents good enough to get them back home. Maybe if time hadn\’t been an issue and/or they were planning to travel elsewhere first/on the way they would\’ve been given something different, but I don\’t know.
The only \”glitches\” at the airport were that we couldn\’t use the self-serve kiosks (since I\’d already checked in online using the info from the original passports) and it took the check-in agent more time because it was a bit of a hassle to remove that data and replace it with the provisional passport data.
So the lessons I\’ve picked up from this affair are:
1. That advice about photocopying your passport, ID, etc. and/or scanning them and emailing to yourself and/or taking photos of them on your phone/camera? Absolutely spot-on! If my relatives hadn\’t had the photocopies with them they would\’ve had to change their flight, likely with a large fare difference on top of the change fee. (Added note: when I went to Costa Rica a few years ago tourists were advised that even though, legally, tourists had to carry passports with them, the Costa Rican authorities recognised that there was so much pickpocketing and other petty crime that they permitted tourists to carry a photocopy of their passport and leave the original in a hotel safe. I don\’t know if that\’s changed. And I don\’t know if I trust hotel safes either.)
2. Keep your vital items like passport, ID card, driver\’s license, and credit cards safe but, where possible, separate e.g. different pockets and/or if you carry a purse and insist on putting valuables in it, some in purse, some on body. That way maybe if you lose one/some of them, you still have others and aren\’t left completely ID-less and penniless. And yes, money belts/pouches are great but I\’ve found that I quickly get so used to them that I worry I might not realise it if they\’d fallen off. Trousers and shirts? Slightly greater chance I\’ll realise it if they\’ve fallen off 🙂
3. Have consulate/embassy contact numbers with you.
4. If the situation is time-critical and you\’re near enough to the consulate/embassy for it to possibly make a difference, even if it\’s after hours or a weekend or holiday, call the consulate/embassy anyway – if you\’re lucky they might have an emergency number or have some way of expediting things.
5. Might be an idea to carry one or two passport-size, passport-like (e.g. no smiling) photos when travelling, just in case. Nothing fancy. I\’m thinking the best thing is if you attend a party/event where they have free photo booths – then you don\’t even have to pay for them. Just remember to take off the sparkly hat and the boa and keep your drink out of sight. And if you don\’t need it/them by the end of the trip then you can have a little fun by walking up to people on the street, showing them the picture, and asking in a panicked voice \”Have you seen this person?\” But seriously, the photos that were required in this situation didn\’t have to be dated, let alone dated within x days/weeks/months, or signed by a guarantor/reference, or perfectly sized, or specifically colour/black & white, so it seems sometimes conditions can be a little less stringent e.g. you could maybe use photos a year or two old, as long as your appearance is similar. Again, YMMV.
Byryl Becturova
i was in UAE and i lost my passport and my consulate give me an emergency passport for returning to Kyrgyz Republic valid for 30 days only but my husband got me a visa on it to enter Egypt and i travel to Egypt and after four years i go back to Kyrgyz to visit my family and i find that it was wrong to go to Egypt and it is against the LAW ? can you advice me why is it wrong and how the Egypt Embassy give Visa
B
Last year I *almost* lost all our passports in Mexico at the Los Cabos Airport in Mexico. After passing through immigration, our bags were X-rayed by customs. Just as we exited the secure zone, my heart just sank! I realized we had all of our bags except for my backpack that contained all our passports! I ran back to the X-ray machine while a security guard was yelling at me. Turns out the backpack’s shoulder strap got stuck in the X-ray conveyor belt mechanism. Whew, that was close one!