The order matters, so here it is first: police report, then your own country’s embassy or consulate, in person.
Step one: the police report
Go to the nearest police station and report it. Two things about this catch people out:
You have to go in person. Nobody can file it for you, not your hotel, not a travel companion, not a tour operator.
It is often not strictly required for your embassy to replace the passport, and it is worth having anyway. It is what evidences your situation while you are in Greece without a valid travel document, and your insurer will want it if you are claiming for anything else that went with the bag.
If the passport was stolen along with a wallet and a phone, this same report covers the lot. Do it once, get it done properly, keep it.
Step two: your own country’s embassy or consulate
Only your own country can issue you a travel document. This is the part where the internet gives people bad advice, so it is worth being precise.
Contact your embassy’s consular section before travelling to it. Emergency passport work is typically handled in person and within narrow public hours, often a couple of hours on weekday mornings, and closed on both Greek and home-country public holidays. Turning up unannounced on a Friday afternoon in August is how a one-day problem becomes a four-day one.
Most missions are in Athens. If you are on an island, the practical shape of the next two days is getting to Athens, which is its own logistics problem in high season. Some countries also maintain consulates or honorary consuls in Thessaloniki, Crete, Corfu or Rhodes, with varying powers, and it is worth asking rather than assuming.
The EU rule that does not apply here, and why people think it does
Widely repeated and wrong in this context, so worth stating plainly.
Under EU law, a Union citizen whose own country has no embassy where they are may seek consular protection, including an emergency travel document, from any other member state’s embassy or consulate. It is a real right and it is genuinely useful.
It applies in third countries, meaning outside the European Union. Greece is a member state, so the right does not reach you here.
If your own country has no mission in Greece, the route is the nearest mission accredited to Greece, which will usually sit in a neighbouring country and handle Greece from there. Ask your own foreign ministry which one covers you. Do not walk into another country’s embassy in Athens expecting to be issued a document.
What an emergency travel document actually is
If a full replacement passport cannot be issued in time, the fallback is an emergency or temporary travel document, and it is important to understand what you are getting.
It is short-lived and single-purpose. A Greek public-services description of the emergency travel document puts its duration at normally no more than about a fortnight, and states explicitly that it does not replace the issuance of an ordinary passport.
Read that as: it is designed to get you home. It is not designed to let you carry on to two more islands and then to Italy. Onward and connecting travel on such a document is a question for the airline and for the authorities of anywhere you intend to enter, not an assumption you can make.
Some countries will instead issue a full replacement passport if you are not travelling imminently. Which one you are offered depends on your nationality and your dates.
What you will be asked for, and what to prepare now
Requirements differ by country, but the pattern is consistent, and the version of this that goes smoothly is the one where you prepared before leaving home.
- Proof of identity and citizenship. A photocopy or a photograph of the passport’s data page is the single most useful thing you can have. Take one before you travel and store it somewhere that is not the bag the passport is in.
- Passport photographs. To the specification your own country requires.
- The police report, where you have it.
- Your travel plans, since the document issued often depends on when you fly.
- A means of paying a fee, which exists and which we do not print, because it is set by your own country.
This is the argument for the boring habit: a photo of the data page in your email, and a separate note of your travel insurance policy number. Travel insurance for Greece covers what a policy does around lost documents, which is usually about the cost of replacement rather than the document itself.
While you are waiting
You are in Greece without a passport, which is uncomfortable and mostly fine.
Hotels ask for identification at check-in. Your police report and any copy you hold are what you show. Explain the situation; it is not unusual and reception has seen it.
Domestic flights and ferries need identification, and what is accepted is set by the carrier and the port authority rather than by us. Ask before you buy a ticket, not at the gate. Collecting ferry tickets covers what a ferry counter asks for in ordinary circumstances.
Tell your accommodation and your airline early. Both are far more flexible when told in advance than when discovered at a desk.
Where this leaves you
Report it to the police in person, contact your own country’s consular section before travelling to it, and go in person within their public hours. Expect an emergency travel document intended to get you home rather than a replacement passport, and expect the whole thing to take a working day or more. The one preparation that changes the outcome is a photograph of your data page, taken before you leave. Visas and entry requirements covers what the passport had to satisfy in the first place, and is Greece safe covers the ordinary precautions that stop this happening.
Quick answers
What do you do if you lose your passport in Greece?
Report it in person at the nearest police station, then contact your own country’s embassy or consular section in Greece and attend in person during its public hours. Only your own country can issue you a travel document, and most missions are in Athens.
Do you need a police report for a lost passport in Greece?
It is not always strictly required for your embassy to act, and it is worth obtaining anyway. It evidences your situation while you are in Greece without a valid document, and your insurer is likely to require it for anything else lost or stolen at the same time. You must file it in person.
Can another EU country’s embassy help if mine is not in Greece?
No, not on that basis. The EU right for unrepresented citizens to use another member state’s embassy applies in countries outside the Union, and Greece is a member state. Ask your own foreign ministry which mission is accredited to Greece for your country.
What is an emergency travel document?
A short-lived document issued in place of a passport so that you can travel home. One Greek public description puts its validity at normally no more than about a fortnight and states that it does not replace an ordinary passport. Treat onward travel on it as something to confirm rather than assume.