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Expedited Lost Or Stolen Passport Replacement Can Be Used In An Emergency

When a trip is coming up or actually happening, there is nothing worse than the realization that your passport has been stolen or is lost. It is bad enough when the trip has not yet started, but is right around the corner. It is even worse when someone is in a foreign country and has no documentation to prove that they are indeed a US citizen. It is times like this that call for expedited lost passport services.

Methods for replacing a lost passport depend upon whether or not the applicant is at home or abroad. Obviously, replacing a lost passport within U.S. borders is much simpler than replacing a passport abroad. Replacing a lost or stolen passport domestically is similar to applying for a new passport.

The process for replacing a lost or stolen passport begins as soon as the cardholder realizes that his or her passport is missing. As soon as the person realizes the passport is missing, they must immediately report the passport missing. It is imperative that the State Department knows about any missing cards so that they may take steps to ensure the missing passports are not used fraudulently.

Phone contact with the State Department is always a good place to start and that toll free number is 877-487-2778 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              877-487-2778      end_of_the_skype_highlighting. This would be the initial contact, but in order to get a new passport, some forms are going to have to be filled out. The DS-64 is the standard from and it should be available for download over the Internet.

Once the DS-64 form is completed, the standard new passport application will also have to be filled out again. The same protocol applies to getting a stolen passport replacement at this point that applies to a new passport, so the whole process should be fairly familiar to anyone that has to do this. In essence, it is just the need to fill out the additional form.

Filing your application through a passport expediting service may require an additional fee, as well as two-way overnight postage and normal fees. Simply add the DS-64 form to the normal passport expedition process and the new passport should arrive in a few weeks. Currently, the State Department projects waits of about two to three weeks for an expedited lost or stolen passport.

Replacing a passport abroad requires a different process. First, the traveler must report to the nearest U.S. consulate or embassy. After reporting the passport as lost or stolen, the consulate’s office will be able to guide any traveler through the process of replacing the passport. Often, the process is much simpler if the traveler has a photocopy of his or her passport as well as other pertinent information readily available. It is always a good idea to keep copies of important documents nearby, but separate from the actual documents. These back-up documents can be invaluable is a crisis situation.

While replacement of a passport can get expensive, sometimes there is no choice but to get an expedited lost U.S. passport replacement. You can find a US passport expediting service that can help in a pinch. When the alternative is missing out on a trip or getting stuck in a foreign country for an extended stay, what real choice is there? Just remember to keep up to date on travel laws and always have copies of important documents in case this situation becomes a reality.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 at 2:49 am and is filed under Cruise Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.