Travel and leisure

If you are one of the unfortunate people who lose their passports every year, you shouldn’t worry. The US Department of State offers you various means of replacing it. By reading the following paragraphs below, you’ll learn how to replace a lost or stolen passport.

But before you even go to have your lost or stolen passport replaced, you need to report its loss immediately. You can do this by filling up a Form DS-64, which is a statement on the loss or theft of your US passport. This is an important step that you need to go through before having your passport replaced. Another option would be to call the Department of State in their toll-free numbers. Or if you lose your passport in another country, contact the US Embassy or Consulate nearest you as soon as possible.

Make sure that you answer everything as clearly as you can when filling up your DS-64. Also, provide as much detail as possible regarding the loss of your passport. Once you have filled in all the necessary information, you will have to send this form to the Passport Services office of the US Department of State.

Let’s say you lose a passport that’s still valid at the time of the loss. What would you do next? You will be required to have yourlost or stolen U S passport replaced. To seek a replacement, you will have to personally submit your DS-64 along with a DS-11 form to the acceptance facility or passport agency. The DS-11 is what you’ll fill in to apply for a replacement passport.

Take note that once your passport has been reported lost, that passport will be invalidated. It means that that passport is no longer an official document, and can therefore no longer be used for travel. Also, once invalidated, you cannot request the passport to be re-validated. You would thus need to apply for a new passport.

In cases where you are able to find your passport after reporting it’s theft or loss, you have to submit your recovered passport to the US Department of States Passport Services office. Once you submit it to them, you have the option of having it canceled and returned to you, or to have it destroyed by not requesting its return. The choice is yours to make.

When applying for a replacement passport, the acceptance facility will require you to submit your application in person. And since you have to travel to the agency’s office, it is highly advised that you check your documents before you even go there. This would save you the hassle of going back and forth until you are finally complete all the requirements.

Now that we’ve covered everything you need to know about how to replace a lost U S passport, let’s sum them up here. First, you would need to report the loss of your United States passport. From there, you can take care of getting a replacement. Just always make sure that you fulfill every requirement asked of you, as this saves you a lot of time in the process.