How to deal with a lost or stolen passport

An emergency travel document is valid only for one journey, explains Simon Calder

Now might be a good time to see if your passport is where you think it is (Simon Calder)

With cabinet ministers announcing that the summer is cancelled, your precious permit is looking increasingly obsolete. Indeed, the passports of a family of four are eroding at rate of £35 per annum.

But the two European giants, Ryanair and Tui, have in successive days declared that they are planning to start up operations in late June and be able to offer a plausible range of holiday opportunities by July.

Millions of Brits are looking forward to exercising their right to travel abroad, when it is at last restored – but that all depends on you being able to brandish your passport.

A small but significant number of prospective travellers have the nightmare of discovering they cannot find their passports the night before the trip. Their home is taken apart and put back together again, without success.

Eventually the travel documents turn up somewhere unexpected – but all too often after the trip has gone without them. So, please, as soon as you have read this, go and check your passport is where you think it is – and, while you are at it, ensure it is not going to expire any time soon.

Suppose it is missing: you are in a relatively good position, because at least you don’t have to find your way back from abroad. But you still need to cancel the passport immediately. “This will reduce the risk of anyone else using your passport or your identity,” says the Passport Office. It can be done swiftly online. But once you have cancelled it, there is no return. Even if you find it five minutes later, it will not work – and will be flagged as not valid in the online systems that keep tabs on travellers crossing borders.

The process of obtaining a replacement is relatively painless – so long as you do not have a record for losing passports in the past. There is a lively trade in “lost” British passports, and some travellers have sold them to raise cash quickly. Therefore you can expect some close questioning before you are able to obtain a new document. But it will be at the normal price.

The much trickier case is when you lose a passport abroad – whether to pickpockets in Barcelona or the ocean in Barbados. Once upon a time it was possible to get on board a plane at a foreign airport, fly to Britain and be met by staff who would assess your story, admit you to the UK and begin the process of getting a new passport from the relative comfort of home.

In these more security-conscious times, it is much more difficult. You must report the loss of the document, most easily online, and then set about obtaining an emergency travel document from the nearest British consulate. (Incidentally, this also works if your passport has expired while you are away; although some people in this position decide to wing it, airline systems are likely to catch travel documents beyond their use-by dates.)

You will need proof of your travel plans, typically a flight booking confirmation, and a photograph, and £100. You will also need to attend an interview, which can be a complete pain if the consulate is hundreds of miles away and/or a weekend intervenes. Generally you will get the document the day after you first attend the consulate.

Once procured, the document is single-use, and will contain details of your travel plans – so you can’t decide to divert with it. The emergency travel document (technically not a passport) allows you to travel through up to five countries en route to your final destination.

If you need a visa to pass through one or more of them, you must obtain the necessary permits before setting off.

Unfortunately you won’t even get to keep the document as a war story to tell; assuming that is for the UK, the UK Border Force will keep it. And you then start the process of applying for a new one.