Lost or stolen passport or ID card abroad

If you are Spanish: the provisional passport

• Back home, the new passport that replaces the lost one is valid until the date the lost one would have expired. If you lose it again, the next ones can be limited to six months.
• For a lost DNI you must ask for a replacement as soon as you can. It is valid for as long as the lost one, unless that had less than 90 days left: then it is issued as a renewal. The lost card stops being valid even if it turns up.

If your country has no embassy there

• Before issuing it they check who you are with your country. In normal cases it should not take more than seven working days, and in an extreme emergency they can issue it without waiting for that answer.
• It is valid for the length of the journey plus two days, and for fifteen calendar days at most, save in exceptional cases. You must hand it back when you arrive.
• You pay what that country charges its own citizens for an emergency document, so the price depends on the embassy. If you can’t pay at that moment, you agree to pay it back to your own country.

If you lose it inside the EU

• Between Schengen countries you are not usually asked for the document at the border, but you are when a country brings back temporary checks, and between a Schengen country and Cyprus or Ireland.
• If you don’t have it, they can refuse you entry, but first they must give you every reasonable chance to get it or to prove by other means, within a reasonable time, that you are an EU citizen. Proving it is up to you.
• A driving licence and bank cards are not travel documents: they may not be accepted to identify you.
• There is no EU rule on travelling without a valid document: each country decides whether to let you in or out without one, and even if one does, the countries you pass through may still ask for it.
• To get home, go to your country’s consulate. If you are Spanish, it can give you the provisional passport above; other EU countries can give you the EU Emergency Travel Document, if they choose to.

Before you travel

• Check whether your country has an embassy or consulate at your destination and, if it doesn’t, note down those of other EU countries.
• Check what the country you are going to requires, such as how long your passport must be valid.
• Register your trip with your country, if it has a system for it.
• Keep a separate copy or photo of your passport and ID card, with their numbers: it is what you will be asked for to identify you.

This page is for EU citizens and, in what it says about Spain, for Spanish nationals. If you have another nationality, these rules don’t apply to you: contact your country’s embassy.