What to Do If You Lose Your Passport Abroad
It is a solvable problem, and it is solved every day by embassies who have seen it a thousand times. The part that goes wrong is the order people do things in, and the fact that almost nobody prepared the two items that turn this from a week into an afternoon.
First, slow down for ten minutes
A large share of lost passports are found within the hour, usually in the bag they were moved to at the airport, the hotel safe, or the pocket of the other jacket. Search the obvious places once, properly, and check with the last two places you used identification.
Do this before reporting, because reporting a passport lost normally cancels it permanently. Travelling on a passport you reported and then found is not an option, and people do this every year.
Report it, in the right order
Once you are reasonably sure, contact your country's nearest embassy or consulate. Most publish an out-of-hours emergency number, and a lost passport with an imminent flight is exactly what it is for.
Report to the local police if the passport was stolen, if your insurer requires it, or if the embassy asks. Ask for a written report and the reference number, and a copy in English if they can provide one. This is the document your insurance claim will hang on, and it is far harder to obtain after you have left the country.
What you are actually applying for
In most cases the outcome is not a new passport but an emergency travel document, a single-use paper issued to get you home, sometimes naming the countries you may transit. Border staff and airlines handle these routinely.
What speeds it up is being able to prove who you are. A photo of the passport page, a driving licence, a copy of the booking, someone at home who can send documents. What slows it down is arriving with nothing at all, which is when identity confirmation turns into a multi-day process.
Bring these to the appointment
Passport photographs to the correct specification, taken locally, which is cheap and quick almost anywhere. Any identification you still hold. Your flight details. The police report if you have one. The application form, completed in advance if it is available online. A means of paying the fee, which is why the standing advice to carry a second card kept somewhere separate matters more in this moment than any other.
The two things to do before you travel
Photograph the identity page of your passport and store it somewhere you can reach without your phone: an email to yourself, a cloud folder you know the password to. A photo held only on the phone that was stolen alongside the passport is no use at all.
Second, keep a written note of the nearest embassy's address and emergency number for each country on the itinerary. Finding it is easy with a working phone and internet connection, and considerably less easy without either, which is the exact situation you are planning for.
Where this overlaps with being targeted
Passports are lost, and they are also taken, and the second case usually happens in one of a small number of ways: a bag left on a chair back, a distraction on public transport, a hotel that asked to hold it and returned it late or not at all. Handing your passport to a hostel or a hire company to keep is common practice in some countries and is worth resisting where the law permits, offering a copy instead.
Those routines, and the sentences that get you out of them politely, are what Scam Atlas sets out country by country. The practical companion piece is keeping your money safe while travelling, since the two losses very often happen in the same thirty seconds.
Common questions
What should I do first if I lose my passport abroad?
Search properly once, then stop and report it. Contact your country's nearest embassy or consulate, and report the loss to the local police if theft is involved or if your embassy or insurer asks for a report. Reporting a passport lost usually cancels it, so be reasonably sure before you do it.
Can I travel home without a passport?
Not on the lost one, but embassies issue an emergency travel document for exactly this. It is typically valid for a single journey home, sometimes with named transit countries, and it is not a replacement passport. Airlines and border officials handle them regularly.
How long does an emergency travel document take?
Often the same day or the next working day if you attend in person with photos, identification and travel details. It depends on the country, the embassy's hours and whether your identity can be confirmed quickly, which is where a photo of your old passport saves the most time.
Do I need a police report for a lost passport?
Not always for the embassy, but usually for a travel insurance claim, and generally yes if the passport was stolen. Get it in writing, keep the reference number, and ask for a copy in English if one is available.