Lost Passport While Travelling in India - What to Do

Losing your passport on a trip is unsettling, but it is a well-trodden path and the process for getting back on a plane home is straightforward if you take the steps in the right order. Hundreds of visitors do this every month — embassies in Delhi handle it as routine work, the police know the drill, and India's Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) issues exit permits day in and day out. The trick is simply to start early, gather the right paperwork, and not panic.

This guide is written for foreign visitors who lose their passport somewhere inside India. If you have not yet arrived in the country, contact your home government's passport office instead.

First, slow down and retrace

Before you start any official process, take fifteen minutes to retrace the last places you had the passport. Most "lost" passports turn up in:

• The hotel safe — guests sometimes forget they used it.
• The previous hotel's reception drawer, if the front desk took a copy and forgot to hand it back at check-out.
• The last airline counter, immigration counter or boarding gate you passed through.
• A side pocket of a daypack or money belt you have not opened in two days.
• The taxi or auto you took to your current location — call the booking app's lost-and-found, or the hotel doorman who flagged the ride down.

A quick set of phone calls — the last hotel, the airline office, the taxi company — resolves a real share of cases before they ever become an embassy problem. If you are still empty-handed after the retrace, move to the steps below.

Step 1 - File a police FIR

Go to the nearest police station and file a First Information Report (FIR) for the lost or stolen passport. The FIR is the single most important piece of paper you will collect today: both your embassy and the FRRO will ask for it before they do anything for you.

• Bring whatever identity document you still have — a driver's licence, a photocopy of the passport bio page, a photo on your phone of the passport, your visa printout, a hotel booking confirmation, anything at all that shows who you are.
• Tell the officer the date, approximate time and last known location of the passport, and whether you believe it was lost or stolen. (The distinction matters for your insurance claim.)
• Ask for a copy of the FIR with the official stamp and the FIR number. Take a photo of it on your phone as well.

In Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Goa, Mumbai and a handful of other tourist cities you can also file at a Tourist Police post — they are used to dealing with foreign visitors, usually speak English, and the FIR process is the same.

If your passport was stolen along with cards or a phone, also call your bank's emergency line straight after the FIR to freeze the cards.

Step 2 - Contact your embassy or consulate

With the FIR in hand, contact your country's embassy or High Commission in New Delhi, or the relevant consulate in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru or Hyderabad. Most major embassies have an emergency line that runs 24 hours.

For citizens of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, the dedicated Travel Advisories For Travel to India page lists the embassy phone numbers, the after-hours emergency line, and the consular district covering each city. Embassies for other countries are listed on our Embassies and Consulates page.

The embassy will tell you which of two documents you need:

• Emergency Travel Document (ETD) — a single-use travel paper, usually valid only for the journey home with limited stopovers. This is what most short-stay tourists end up with. Typically issued within 1–3 working days.
• Replacement full passport — a normal new passport. Slower (often 1–4 weeks) and more expensive, but worth it if you still have weeks of travel planned, are continuing onward to other countries, or hold onward visas you do not want to redo.

You will normally be asked to bring:

• The original FIR from the police.
• Two recent passport-size photographs (any photo studio in any Indian town will print these in ten minutes for under ₹200).
• Any proof of citizenship you can find — old passport copy, citizenship certificate, driving licence, even a clear photo of the passport on your phone.
• Your flight booking or onward travel plans.
• The embassy's fee, payable in cash (rupees), card or bank draft depending on the country. US, UK, Australian and Canadian embassies have published fee lists on their websites.

Most embassies require an online appointment before you can walk in. Book the appointment as soon as you have the FIR; same-day or next-day slots are usually available for emergencies.

Step 3 - Get an exit permit from FRRO

This is the step first-time visitors often miss, and the one that catches people at the airport on the day of their flight: even with a brand-new emergency travel document, you cannot leave India until the FRRO issues you an exit permit.

The reason is simple: your Indian visa was stamped or stickered into the passport you lost. Immigration on the way out needs to see proof of legal entry, and the exit permit is the document that replaces the lost visa stamp.

• Apply online through the e-FRRO portal at https://indianfrro.gov.in/efrro/home. The service you need is Exit Permit on lost passport (or similarly named — wording sometimes shifts).
• Note on the URL: The e-FRRO portal is geo-restricted to traffic from inside India. If you try the link from your home country before your trip it will not load — that is expected, not a broken link. From any Indian network (your hotel Wi-Fi, an Indian SIM, a friend's connection in India) it loads normally. If you still cannot reach it once in India, walk into the FRRO office in person — addresses below.
• Upload the FIR, your new emergency travel document or replacement passport, your visa copy or e-Visa PDF if you have one, your flight ticket out of India, and a photograph.
• Pay the small fee online. The portal usually responds within 1–3 working days; tourist exit permits are often turned around faster.
• Print the exit permit (or save it as a PDF on your phone) — you will need to show it at the immigration counter on departure, alongside the new travel document.

If you are short on time and the online process is stalled, visit the FRRO office in person in the city you are in. Take the same documents you would have uploaded online — FIR, new emergency travel document, visa or e-Visa printout, flight ticket and a passport photograph.

Major FRRO offices

Phone numbers and addresses occasionally shift — confirm with your hotel concierge or by phone before travelling across town to one of these offices.

• Delhi: East Block-VIII, Level-2, Sector-1, R. K. Puram, New Delhi 110066. Tel: 011-2671 1443 / 2671 3851. Email: frrodli@nic.in
• Mumbai: 3rd Floor, Special Branch Building, Badruddin Tayabji Lane, Mumbai 400001. Tel: 022-2262 0446. Email: helpdesk.mum-ivfrt@gov.in
• Bengaluru: 5th Floor, 'A' Block, TTMC (BMTC Bus Stand Building), K. H. Road, Shantinagar, Bengaluru 560027. Tel: 080-2221 8183. Email: frroblr-ka@nic.in
• Chennai: Shastri Bhawan, 26 Haddows Road, Chennai 600006. Tel: 044-2825 1721. Email: chiochn@nic.in
• Kolkata: 237 Acharya Jagdish Chandra Bose Road, Kolkata 700020. Tel: 033-2281 8640. Email: frrokol@nic.in
• Hyderabad: Foreigners Branch, Rajiv Gandhi Terminal, Begumpet (Old) Airport, Hyderabad. Tel: 040-2988 0374. Email: frrohyd@nic.in
• Goa: Foreigners Branch, Goa Police Headquarters, opposite Azad Maidan, Panaji 403001. Tel: 0832-242 6545. Email: frrogoa@nic.in
• Kochi (Cochin): 2nd Floor, Airlines Building, Cochin International Airport, Kochi 683111. Tel: 0484-261 1277. Email: frrococ@nic.in
• Thiruvananthapuram: T. C. 14/1377, Vazhuthacaud, opposite Ganapati Temple, Thycaud P. O., Thiruvananthapuram 695014. Tel: 0471-233 3515. Email: frrotvm@nic.in
• Amritsar: 123-D, Ranjit Avenue, Amritsar 143001. Tel: 0183-250 8250. Email: frroasr@nic.in

Smaller FRO (Foreigners Registration Office) desks operate inside the local Superintendent of Police's office in many other state capitals (Calicut, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and others). If you are far from any of the cities listed above, your hotel reception or the local police can point you to the nearest FRO.

Plan the timing. Police FIR (a few hours), embassy travel document (1–3 working days), FRRO exit permit (1–3 working days). Realistically, build in a working week between losing the passport and your replacement flight home. Most foreign tourists who lose a passport end up changing their flight by 3–7 days.

Step 4 - Reschedule your flight and notify the airline

Once you know your embassy and FRRO timelines, call the airline to change your departure date. Many tickets have a fee waiver for documented passport-loss cases — the FIR plus a letter from the embassy is usually enough.

If you booked through an online travel agency or a tour operator, work through them rather than the airline directly: they have desks set up for exactly this kind of rebooking and can usually move you onto the next available flight on the same fare class.

When you book the new flight, note that the name on the ticket must match the new travel document exactly. If your emergency document spells out your full middle name and your old ticket did not, get the airline to update the ticket — minor name mismatches are a common cause of last-minute denial of boarding.

Step 5 - File the insurance claim

If you have travel insurance, lost-passport replacement costs (embassy fees, photographs, FRRO fees, the cost of the rebooked flight, sometimes extra hotel nights) are usually reimbursable. To claim, you will need:

• The police FIR.
• Receipts for embassy fees, photographs, FRRO fees, taxis, additional hotel nights, the rebooked flight.
• A copy of the new travel document or passport.
• A claim form from the insurer's website or app.

Keep the originals together in a folder until the claim is settled.

Before your next trip - simple precautions

A few small habits make the lost-passport process dramatically faster if it ever happens again:

• Carry two photocopies of the passport bio page and the visa. Keep one in your luggage and one in a separate bag. Save clear phone photos as well, plus a copy in a cloud account you can reach from any device.
• Carry two spare passport photos in your travel folder. They cost nothing to print at home and save a stop at a photo studio when you are already stressed.
• Use the hotel safe. Lock the passport away on arrival and only carry a photocopy when sightseeing. The street_smart guide on this site explains why you should not leave your passport at the hotel reception either.
• Note your country's embassy emergency line in your phone before you fly, alongside the 112 unified Indian emergency number.
• Keep cards and the passport in different pockets or bags. A single stolen wallet is a much smaller emergency when the passport was elsewhere.

Common questions

Can I leave India on the day I get the new passport? Not without the FRRO exit permit. Plan on at least one extra day after the embassy releases the new document, and ideally three.

Do I need to apply for a new Indian visa? Usually no — the FRRO exit permit covers the trip out. If you want to return to India later, you will apply for a fresh e-Visa or visa using the new passport in the normal way; see How to Get a Visa to Visit India.

My passport was inside my hotel-room locker which was broken into — does that change anything? Yes. Make sure the FIR records it as theft rather than loss; this matters for insurance, and the hotel will usually give you an internal incident report as well.

I am about to fly to India and have not lost my passport — why am I reading this? Excellent. Save this page. Take the photocopies. Note the embassy number. Most readers never use any of it, and that is the point.

Can my embassy come to where I am? No — you have to travel to the embassy or consulate in person for biometrics and identity verification. If you are in a remote area, plan an internal flight or train to the nearest consular city.

Related guides on this site

• Street Smart Tips for Touring India — the broader set of common-sense habits for keeping your trip trouble-free.
• Government Travel Advisories For Travel to India — embassy contacts and emergency lines for citizens of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US.
• Embassies and Consulates in New Delhi — embassy addresses for other countries, plus the FRRO and Bureau of Immigration links.
• How to Get a Visa to Visit India — useful when applying for the next Indian visa on the new passport.

Procedures and fees change. Verify current requirements on your own embassy's website and on the official e-FRRO portal at https://indianfrro.gov.in/efrro/home before you rely on the timings above.