Losing a passport, a phone or a wallet abroad turns a good week into a stressful one. In Malta the process is short if you know the order of the steps. The Malta Police Force runs an official lost and found hub, and a police report is the document every other office will ask you for. Here is what to do, in the right order.
First hour: block your cards and your SIM
Before you search, stop anyone else from using what you lost:
- Bank cards: freeze or block them in your banking app, or call your bank. If you opened a local account, follow the steps in our guide to opening a bank account in Malta to reach your Maltese bank.
- Phone: call your mobile operator from another phone and ask them to block the SIM. Our guide to the Malta SIM card explains how local prepaid plans work if you need a replacement.
- Accounts: from a computer, sign out of your email and messaging accounts on the lost phone and change your passwords.
If you are in danger or witness a crime, the emergency number in Malta is 112, as listed in our guide to local rules for language students.
Check the police lost and found hub
The Malta Police Force publishes an official lost and found hub online. According to the police:
- If your item does not appear in the hub, it has not yet been found and brought to a police station. Check back often.
- People who find a lost item are obliged by law to take it to the nearest police station within three days.
- Every three months, the Government Gazette publishes a list of unclaimed items handed in to the police.
Retrace your steps too. Ask at the café, the bus terminus, the beach kiosk or the shop where you last had the item. Ask at your school reception too.
File a police report
The police encourage a report especially when the lost item is of high value or is an official document such as a passport. Go to a police station with:
- some form of identification, a photocopy or a photo of your passport if you have one;
- your address in Malta;
- a description of the item, where and when you last had it;
- for a phone, its IMEI number if you saved it, and the box or invoice if you have them.
Ask for a copy of the report. Embassies, insurers and Maltese offices will ask for it.
If your bag was stolen
A theft is not a loss, and the report says so. Tell the officer if you believe the item was taken, where it happened and at what time. Insurers treat theft and loss differently, and the wording of the report decides which part of your policy applies. If the theft happened on a bus or in a shop, ask staff whether a camera covers the spot, and give that detail to the police.
Tell your school and your accommodation
Your school needs to know if you lost the documents it issued, such as a student card or a letter of enrolment, and it will reissue them. Your host family or landlord needs to know if keys were in the lost bag. Lost keys together with your address on a document in the same wallet is a reason to ask for the lock to be changed.
Replacing a passport or identity card
Your own country issues replacement and emergency travel documents, not Malta. Contact your embassy or consulate as soon as you have the police report, and ask:
- Which documents and photos to bring.
- Whether you need an appointment.
- How long an emergency travel document takes, if your flight home is close.
If your country has no embassy in Malta, its website names the nearest consulate or the country that represents it. EU citizens without their own representation may turn to the embassy or consulate of another EU country.
Replacing a Maltese residence card
If you are an EU student who registered with Identità and lost your residence card, the replacement procedure asks for a police lost report issued in Malta. Our guide for EU students staying over three months explains the rest of the procedure.
Travel insurance and phone insurance
If you hold travel insurance or phone insurance, read the claims conditions the same day. Check whether your policy sets a deadline for the claim and whether it requires the police report. Keep receipts for anything you replace.
Prevent it before it happens
- Leave your passport in your accommodation and carry a copy or a photo of it.
- Store a scan of your passport, insurance and school letter in a secure online folder.
- Note your phone’s IMEI number, shown in the settings under the information about the phone.
- Carry one card on you and keep a second one at home.
- Set up remote location and remote wipe on your phone.
The order to remember
Block the cards and the SIM, check the police lost and found hub, file a police report, then contact your embassy and your insurer. The police report is the document every later step asks for.
