The direct answer: protect the document before travelling
The direct answer is to protect the missing document before trying to travel on. Report the loss or theft through the issuing country's official route, contact the competent embassy or consulate, and ask what replacement or emergency document fits your exact journey. A police report, driving licence, residence card, photograph or scan can support identity checks, but none automatically becomes a valid international travel document.
The location × representation decision path
The first information-gain asset is a location-and-representation decision path. If you are in another EU country, contact your own country's embassy or consulate. If you are outside the EU and your country has a mission able to help, use it. If you are outside the EU and your EU country has no embassy or consulate—or it cannot effectively be reached—contact the mission of another EU country. That last case is the EU citizenship right to equal consular protection, explained separately in the EU consular-protection guide.
Do not treat Schengen as a document waiver. Routine border checks are absent across much of the area, but police checks, temporary internal border controls, airline or ferry identity checks and accommodation duties still exist. The absence of a booth on one leg does not prove that the carrier, transit country or final border will accept the evidence you have. The Schengen system and the right to enter as an EU citizen are related but distinct.
Inside the EU, Your Europe states that every EU country decides whether and when it will let an EU citizen enter or leave without a valid passport or national identity card. Procedures can change and countries in the route can make different decisions. Your first mission contact should therefore produce four answers: which authority invalidates the document, which document can be issued, where you may travel with it, and whether every carrier and transit point will accept it.
Report, cancel and protect the rest of the wallet
Report a theft—or a loss when local or national guidance requires it—to the local police and obtain the report or reference number. The report creates a dated record for the issuing authority, insurer and any later misuse dispute. It does not authorise boarding by itself. If the police will not issue a paper copy, record the station, date, time, reference and officer or desk details you were given.
Notify the passport or identity-card authority promptly through its official channel. National systems decide how a missing document is blocked, revoked or recorded, and an electronic identity card may have a separate digital-login or signature function to suspend. Once a document has been declared missing or invalidated, do not use it if it reappears unless the issuing authority expressly confirms that it remains valid; border and carrier systems may already treat it as cancelled.
Then protect the rest of the stolen bag or wallet. Freeze payment cards, secure the phone and email account, change exposed access codes, contact the residence-permit authority if that card is missing, and preserve any device-location or transaction evidence without confronting a suspected thief. Use the cross-border victim guide if theft or another crime is involved. Call 112 for immediate danger, not merely to replace routine police or consular reporting.
Build identity evidence for the mission
An embassy needs evidence of identity and nationality, not a perfect duplicate of the lost document. Prepare any secure copy or document number, another official photo ID, birth or citizenship evidence if accessible, proof of residence, a recent compliant photo if requested, the police reference, travel itinerary and contact details for someone or an authority that can confirm identity. Ask before sending sensitive scans by ordinary email; use the mission's stated secure route.
When you are outside the EU and represented, your own country decides whether to issue an emergency passport, temporary passport, laissez-passer, national emergency travel document or ordinary replacement. Names, validity, fees, evidence and appointment procedures differ. Ask whether the document permits only a direct return, allows transit, supports onward travel or can receive a visa. Do not infer scope from the word 'passport'.
The EU Emergency Travel Document since December 2025
The shared European route matters when an EU citizen is outside the Union and unrepresented. Under Articles 20 and 23 TFEU and the consular-protection rules, another EU country's embassy or consulate must treat that citizen on the same conditions as its own nationals. The helping mission confirms identity and nationality with the citizen's home country; it can then issue the standard EU Emergency Travel Document. The right is European, while the verification and practical service are shared between missions.
Since 9 December 2025, member states issue the redesigned EU Emergency Travel Document under Directive (EU) 2019/997. It is a secure single-journey document normally intended to reach the citizen's country of nationality or residence, with another destination possible exceptionally. Its validity covers the authorised route, necessary overnight stops and connections plus a two-day grace period and normally does not exceed 15 calendar days. It is not a replacement passport for continuing a holiday.
A helping member state charges the fee it charges its own nationals for comparable national emergency documents and may waive it. If the applicant cannot pay at application, EU rules provide a repayment undertaking through the home country. The practical amount, payment method, opening hours and photo requirement still need confirmation from the mission before travel to it.
Limits, non-EU family members and children
The EU ETD right must not be overextended. Another EU mission is not the default replacement office while you are inside the EU, and a represented citizen abroad is normally directed to their own mission. A member state may choose to issue an EU ETD more widely—including to its own nationals or in certain represented and intra-EU cases—but those are options and arrangements, not a universal right for every missing-document case.
Non-EU family members and residents follow a different route. A non-EU national normally contacts the embassy or consulate of their country of nationality for a replacement passport or return document and separately reports a missing EU residence permit to the issuing residence authority. Directive 2019/997 allows member states to issue an EU ETD in some cases to accompanying non-EU family members who legally reside in the EU, but it does not erase visa, residence or destination-entry requirements. Obtain written instructions for both the travel document and the residence evidence.
For a child, contact the mission immediately and ask which parent or guardian must attend, what consent or custody evidence is required, and how identity and nationality will be confirmed. A child needs their own valid travel document. The children travelling in Europe guide covers the separate consent, carrier and family-evidence checks; an emergency document does not settle a custody or consent question.
Verify the whole route before rebooking
Do not rebook from the document name alone. Send the issuing mission the proposed departure, every transit point, final destination and carrier. Ask whether the route is authorised and whether a transit visa or other permission is needed. Then confirm acceptance with the carrier through a durable channel and check the official entry and transit rules for each country. A direct journey may work when an otherwise identical connecting journey does not.
At the airport, station or port, arrive early with the emergency document, police record, booking, mission correspondence, proof of residence where relevant and any additional identity evidence the mission tells you to carry. Keep originals accessible rather than in checked luggage. If a carrier refuses, ask for the reason and policy in writing, but do not argue that EU free movement forces a private carrier to accept a document its verification process does not recognise.
One action file from loss to replacement
The second information-gain asset is one action file. Keep the missing document's type and number; date and place last seen; police reference; issuing-authority cancellation record; consular case number; identity and nationality evidence; residence proof; proposed route; written transit and carrier confirmations; fees and receipts; insurance notification; and the final emergency document instructions. Store it securely outside the lost device and share only what each authority needs.
After returning, surrender or return the EU ETD as instructed, replace the passport or ID through the national process, replace the residence card separately, monitor relevant accounts and tell the insurer what emergency costs were incurred. Preserve the loss and cancellation records in case the document number appears in a later identity or travel dispute. Destroy insecure spare copies once the matter is closed under your normal records practice.
Europe's achievement is not that losing a passport has become frictionless. It is that an EU citizen outside the Union does not lose consular protection merely because their own flag is absent: another member state's mission becomes a shared European front door. The next test is making document status, mission appointments, carrier acceptance and transit checks work through one secure, multilingual route. Until then, classify location first, invalidate safely and obtain route-specific confirmation before moving.