What Happens to Our Visa if We Lose Our Passport?

A passport is a travel document confirming identity and citizenship, valid both within Georgia's territory and abroad. It contains our personal data and stores information about our travel history. Typically, travelers hold a single passport. However, it's possible for the same person to also hold more than one valid passport. If a person needs more than one passport during the same period - to obtain a visa or to travel abroad - in such a case, the passport is issued based on the interested party's substantiated written request.

The passport is precisely the document where, along with travel history, the visas issued to the traveler are gathered. Given the circumstances, it's important to take particular care of our passport, protecting it from loss or damage. However, due to certain circumstances, we're never fully insured against losing or damaging our passport before its expiration

For reasons beyond our control or dependent on us, there's always the possibility of losing or damaging a passport. By presenting a damaged passport at the border, we won't be able to enter the country. In such cases, we apply for a new passport at the relevant agency. However, if you had a visa in your old passport and obtain a new one, the visa does not automatically carry over. As for transferring a visa based on an application, approaches differ by country.

In the case of the US, the visa is not transferred and you go through the visa process from the beginning. After completing all the steps, you'll receive a decision on your visa. If approved, your new passport will have the visa.

Canada's visa validity is determined by the passport's validity, and if the passport is lost, the visa does not carry over to the new passport.

The duration of a European study, work, or family reunification visa is up to 3 months. However, in most cases, holders of this visa category receive an ID residence card, which has a longer validity period. In such cases, if you lose your passport, having the 3-month sticker visa in your passport is no longer required, since the ID you received grants you the right to legally live, work, and/or study in the country.

For travel to Australia and India, we need an e-visa, which isn't stamped in the passport. However, keep in mind that the e-visa lists the passport number, without which travel isn't possible.

In the case of the United Kingdom, the visa can be transferred only if you have photos or a scanned copy of your old passport.

Be sure to make and keep scanned versions of your old and new passports - the info page, as well as pages with visas and entry/exit stamps. If you have a scanned version of your passport, in the case of the UK, the procedure for transferring a visa to a new passport looks like this:

• At the initial stage, you must file a report with the police regarding the lost passport.
• You complete the application.
• You pay the visa fee.
• You book an appointment at a visa application center.
• You provide your fingerprints

After submitting your fingerprints, you wait for a decision regarding the visa's transfer to the new passport - the response typically takes 3 to 4 weeks.

You might not be able to restore the information in your passport at all, or it may take a very long time. For example, if you traveled to Germany, the existing information is stored in the border crossing database between Germany and Georgia. Accordingly, to restore your travel history, you'd need to contact both the Georgian and German border services, which takes quite a long time. Confirming travel history is only possible with the information contained in the passport. Georgia's border service stores information on when you left the country and when you returned. However, information about which specific country you were in isn't stored in the service agency's border crossing database. At https://www.sa.gov.ge/, you can submit an online application, or contact your nearest service agency and request the information in the database about your border crossings from Georgia.

So, to protect yourself, it's better to keep a scanned copy of your passport. This will help you avoid a lot of hassle later on, and will help both with preserving your travel history and transferring a visa to a new passport.