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 USA passport.

First things first. Before anything else, you have to report the loss of your passport. You do this by filling up a DS-64 form, which would contain your statement regarding the loss or theft of your US passport. This is an important step to getting a replacement passport, and one that you should do immediately. Or you could also call the US Department of State to report this. In cases where you lose your passport while traveling in another country, you would need to contact the nearest US Embassy or consulate as soon as you can.

When filling up your Form DS-64, make sure that you fill in every item correctly and exhaustively. This may also require you to remember details that surround the loss of your passport. Fill in any detail that you think will be helpful in replacing your passport. Once you are done with this step, you can then send the form to the Passport Services office of the US State Department.

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 your United States 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.

Meanwhile, your passport is invalidated once it is reported lost. Because of this, you will no longer be able to use this passport in case you’re able to retrieve it. You cannot apply have it revalidated, so you would really have to apply for a new passport.

What if you recover your passport after you’ve reported it was stolen? You will be required to send this to the US Department of State’s Passport Services office. You can request this passport returned to you, otherwise, it will be destroyed by the office.

Keep in mind that when applying for a new passport, you would need to appear in person at the acceptance facility. Aside from that, make sure that all the required forms are properly filled in before you even visit the passport agency’s office. That said, you should check if your passport photos are already attached, and that the other pieces of information required from you are filled in. This saves you a lot of time, and frees you from the hassle of going back and forth to offices just to fulfill all the requirements.

Now that we’ve covered everything you need to know about how to replace a lost United States passport, let’s sum them up here. First, you would need to report the loss of your pasport. 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.