Lost or stolen passport abroad? What to do in the first 48 hours

If your passport is lost or stolen abroad, report it, then go to your country’s nearest embassy or consulate for an emergency document that gets you home or onward. Americans can usually get a limited-validity emergency passport, often by the next business day. British nationals apply online for an emergency travel document costing £125, usually ready two working days later. Canadians and Australians apply through their embassies. Once you report a passport lost, it is cancelled for good, even if it turns up in your hotel room the next morning.

The first hour after it goes missing

Search once, properly, then report it: to the police if it was stolen, and to your passport authority so nobody else can use it. The order matters less than doing both on the same day. What catches people is reporting too early: the US State Department says a passport reported lost or stolen is cancelled and stays invalid even if you find it.

A police report is useful but not always required. The State Department says police reports are not mandatory for a US replacement but help confirm what happened; Canada says the same and adds that the report may help with an insurance claim. Ask for one anyway if the passport was stolen, because a travel insurer will almost certainly want it.

What each country gives you abroad

Every major passport office offers a fast, limited document for travellers who have to move soon, and a full passport for everyone else. The names differ and so do the rules on where you can go with it. This is what four governments say, read on 27 September 2026.

The UK document comes with conditions worth knowing before you apply. You can apply online only if you have held a UK passport issued on or after 1 January 2006. Your travel plans may be printed on it, so if they change you reapply and pay again. GOV.UK tells applicants not to book travel until they receive an email saying how and when to collect it, and says UK border control keeps the document when you arrive home.

The US route asks for more in person. You apply at the embassy or consulate and bring a passport photo (2 by 2 inches, or 5 by 5 cm), identification such as a driving licence, proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate or a photocopy of the missing passport, your travel itinerary and a completed DS-11. The State Department says replacements generally cost the same as any other passport, and that a victim of a serious crime or disaster who cannot pay may qualify for a free limited-validity emergency passport.

Emergency document or full replacement

Take the emergency document if you are flying within days, and apply for the full passport once you are home, unless you are staying abroad long enough for a full one to arrive. Emergency documents are built to end a crisis, not to last. A US emergency passport runs for up to a year; the UK document usually covers a single journey.

The onward row trips people up. GOV.UK tells British applicants to check that an emergency travel document will be accepted in every country they plan to leave, enter or pass through, including whether they need a visa. Airlines check this too, so ask before you rebook.

Losing your passport in Nepal

In Nepal, report the loss to the police, go to your embassy in Kathmandu for the replacement, and then deal with your Nepal visa, which stays attached to the passport you lost. Your tourist visa and entry stamp are inside the old book. The Department of Immigration’s website lists a visa transfer service on its online system, but it does not set out the steps for a lost passport in plain terms, so ask the Department of Immigration in Kathmandu what it needs before you head to the airport. Leaving with a new passport that shows no entry can mean awkward questions at departure.

On a trek, keep the passport in a zip-lock bag at the bottom of your pack, not in a hip-belt pocket you open at every teahouse. Carry a photocopy and a phone photo of the data page and your visa page, stored separately. They are not travel documents, but every embassy in the table above either asks for proof of citizenship or says a copy of the lost passport speeds things up.

Your guide can help with the practical side, such as reaching the police post and getting back to Kathmandu, but the replacement itself is between you and your embassy. Build a spare day at the end of your trip; it is the day that absorbs a problem like this.

Before you travel, it is worth reading how Nepal’s visa on arrival works, the six-month passport validity rule, and how to get a passport fast if yours is close to expiry.

Keep reading

Sources: US Department of State, Lost or Stolen Passport Abroad and Report Your Passport Lost or Stolen; GOV.UK, Travel urgently from abroad without your UK passport and Cancel a lost or stolen passport; Government of Canada, Lost or stolen belongings outside Canada; Australian Passport Office and Smartraveller, lost and stolen and emergency passport guidance (read via their published summaries, as the pages did not load for us); Nepal Department of Immigration website. All read on 27 September 2026. This is general information, not legal advice; rules change, so check the official source before you travel.

Photos via Pexels: Đan Thy Nguyễn Mai, MART PRODUCTION, Roman Saienko