Lost passport, wallet or phone abroad: what to have ready

If your passport is gone abroad, report it to the local police, then contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate to replace it. If cards are gone, call the issuer first. If your phone is gone, lock or erase it from another device, then cover the accounts it opens. Before any call, write down what's missing, when you last had it and a number where you can be reached.

This is for U.S. citizens. The steps for a passport come from the State Department, and the rest depends on your bank, carrier and insurer. This guide can't tell you what an embassy will do in your case or how long it will take.

When it's not in the bag

Your passport isn't in the bag. Check the two obvious places, the hotel room safe and the last place you paid for something. If it's still gone, stop looking and start a page of notes, because the next hour is a series of calls, and each one asks you the same questions.

Have this in front of you first

Ten minutes of gathering saves a call you'd otherwise have to make twice.

What to do, by what you lost

The order we'd follow: undo the damage first, then start the replacement.

If it's your passport

Report the loss to the local police as soon as you can, and note the police report number. Then contact the nearest U.S. embassy or consulate. The State Department's lost or stolen passport page says you'll fill in a replacement application, Form DS-11, and a statement that the lost passport is lost or stolen, Form DS-64, which the online DS-11 generates for you. If there isn't enough time to receive a regular passport, the consular section may offer an emergency passport, which the State Department says can be valid for up to a year. Embassies have after-hours duty officers for life-or-death emergencies, or if you need to travel or are the victim of a serious crime. How long it takes depends on the embassy, so ask at the first contact.

You need a new passport to fly home, so tell the embassy the date you're due to travel when you first call. The passport photo page you photographed before you left, or the one your travel companion has, helps with identity but is not a travel document.

If it's the wallet

Call the phone number on the back of the card or in the issuer's app. You'll be asked to confirm your identity, so have your name, address and recent transactions in mind. Ask them to freeze or cancel the card and ask what they can do abroad: an emergency replacement card, cash, or a temporary number. Then check the card is the only thing you lost. If your driver's license was in the wallet, note that TSA accepts identification up to two years past its expiration, and for someone with no acceptable ID, TSA offers an identity verification service called ConfirmID for a fee, which may help with a domestic connection. A passport in the wallet is the bigger problem, and it goes back to the section above.

If it's the phone

From another device, use your phone maker's find-my feature to lock it, and to erase it if you don't expect to see it again. Call your carrier to suspend the SIM, so no one can run up charges or intercept text codes. Then change the passwords on email and any accounts it opens, and move two-factor codes to another device. Photos and boarding passes stored on the phone will be gone from your hands too, which is why a printed copy helps. See what to keep on paper when you travel.

What to say

Use these as written or change the words. They are short on purpose, because you'll say them several times.

Do one thing at a time

Start with whatever is hardest to undo, which is often a card or a phone that gives access to accounts. Write down who you spoke to, when and what they said would happen next. Then tell one person you trust, in a sentence: what was lost, where you are and what you need. If your phone is gone, borrow one and use a number you know by heart.

What can go wrong

• Reporting to the bank and not the police, or the reverse. Passport loss goes to both police and the embassy.
• Erasing a phone before you've checked the taxi or the hotel desk. Lock it first, and erase only when you've given up.
• Not writing down who you spoke to, so a second call starts from zero.
• Leaving the phone as your only copy of boarding passes and the hotel address.
• Waiting to tell the embassy about your flight date.

Related guides

If you lose your only card and can't pay, the hotel desk guide covers what to say tonight. Before your next trip, the travel document checklist shows how to note where each document is kept, so you can say exactly what's gone. And the first international trip checklist covers sorting money and insurance early.

What the Companion does with this

In Travel Companion, dealing with something lost or stolen is a set of questions: a passport or ID, bank cards or a wallet, a phone, a bag or luggage, or tickets or booking confirmations. It helps you gather what you need before you make the call, and a separate Let somebody know step drafts the wording for someone with you, someone waiting to meet you or someone at home. The wording stays in your browser and isn't saved or sent. The steps for a passport, cards or a phone come from the sources above, since the Companion gives no embassy, police or legal steps. And it never stores a passport number, because there isn't a field for one. See the Travel Companion page.

Questions people ask