I have been in Italy since June. I have an Italian and a USA passport. As a dual citizen I have an Italian ID card so I don't need to carry a passport for ID. They just stay in my drawer. Something came up where I have to spend November in India. The Indian consulate website in Milan says you must apply for a visa on line. It takes 8-10 days during peak season (spring) and 4-5 days in iff periods (Monsoon season, now).

The Indian consulate has out-sourced the visa process to an Italian company. After 10 days if not hearing anything I started calling but they never answer the phone. Finally they answered an email after several days. They said while you have to fill out the form on line, you have to print it and take it to the office. Nowhere does it say that on their website. I went there with all required documents, including both passports which they took copies of. Both passports numbers are also on the application. I paid 185 euros, bought a plane ticket for Milan to Delhi, Delhi to Sacramento.

On the train back from Milan to Torino I received an email from them saying that since I don't have an Italian passport, they'll never process my visit before my flight on 10/30. I wrote back, I have a passport, i showed it it to you. Do you want me to email a copy? They said copies won't do. They have to see the original. I said I was in your office earlier today and showed you my original Italian passport. They haven't answered since.

Today I took off work to go from Torino to the Indian consulate in
Milan. But I couldn't find either my Italian or USA passport in my drawer! I've turned the apartment upside down. They must have fallen out of my laptop case on the train back. No one else has been in the apartment except for five firemen responding to a false alarm on Saturday, and I don't know why they'd flinch a passport. Now I have to go to the police station in Torino to "denounce" both passports. Then go to the US and Indian consulates to get new, emergency ones, which I'm not sure india will accept, even if I get a visa from them.

I'm also wondering how a new USA passport with a new picture is going to affect my Global Entry.

Has anyone had a problem getting a visa on a brand new passport? Does a new passport affect Global entry? If I can't get out on 10/30 I'll lose thousands in plane tickets and one month rent on an apartment in India. Thoughts? Or am I just out of luck?

That really sucks!

Global Entry - just update the info (new passport number) on the website and you'll be fine. Visa on a new passport - I doubt you'll have any problems. Just explain the reason that it's new if asked. Have you contacted Trenitalia to see if they maybe found the passports?

Have you contacted the US Embassy to see if the passport has been turned in?

No, but those are good ideas. I'll contact Trenitalia and the US Embassy, as well as the Italian Embassy for my Italian passport. I've tried calling the Italian Embassy several times about the visa, and they just don't answer the phone after about 15 tries. You get a recording, then they hang up.

I tried to contact Trenitalia, but they don't answer the phone. They really don't have a number, except for one, for passengers with mobility problems, whom they have to accommodate by law. I went personally to the train station and asked, and they looked at me like I was out of my mind. They asked why I am going to them for a lost passport? Go to the police. I said, "Because I'm pretty sure I lost it on your train. Someone might hand stuff like that to you when they find it." They said, "We'd just hand it to the police." I went to the police station. They said that all I can do is, "denounce" the passports and be without one, and apply for a new one. I declined, on the off chance they might show up. So I went back their this evening, and it turns out the main police station is only open from 8AM till 1:30 PM. So I decided to go to Milan and to the USA and Italian embassy and apply for new ones tomorrow.

However, you can't find the Italian embassy in Milan on the internet. Two post-grad professional students and I couldn't. You can find the American consulate in Milan, Australian, Zimbabwean, Canadian, etc, but not the Italians own consulate in Milan. If anyone has it, I'd appreciate it. You can find the american embassy in Milan easily, but just like the Indian consulate, they don't answer the phone. You can find a phone for lost passports on their website, but it's a U.S.A. number for people who lost their passport in the U.S. They said they had no idea what I should do if I lost my passport overseas.

So, tomorrow, off to Milano for an early morning visit to try to get to both the U.S. and Italian embassies, which won't be easy because they are both only open from 8AM until 12 noon.

I was wondering about other peoples experiences with lost passports in Italy.

@:-) I think you'll find it hard to find any country's embassy, consulate or any diplomatic representation within the country. @:-)

Italian bureaucracy sounds wonderful.

Sorry for your troubles. Good luck resolving it all. It sounds like the US PP may be easiest to replace.

Well, I'm supposed to pick up the Indian passport next Monday if all goes well, but I'll need to show the passports to do it. I'm concerned that I'll have new, temporary emergency passports (if I get them at all in time), not the normal standard ones listed on the visa application. I put forward my italian passport as the primary one on the visa, not the USA one. I figured it would get italians easier to move on an italian passport, rather than one they have to verify by contacting America, e.g., i'm not a wanted fugitive from there, no pending criminal charges. Italy would keep it simpler.

One good lesson, I found the American Embassy in Milan and am going there early in the AM, but I spend hours and hours trying to find the location of the Italian embassy in Milan, with no success. There are plenty of websites that will tell you where any embassy or consulate of any country is located in the world. Then someone informed me that there is no such thing as an Italian Embassy or Consulate in Italy. Consulates and Embassies are to help foreigners when they're out of their own country. An Italian doesn't need an italian embassy, since they're in their own country. For passports, they go to the police station. Now, that's going to be a trick tomorrow, to stand in line for a passport at a police station, but if you lose an italian passport in italy, turns out you go to your local precint.

What is the Indian passport you reference?

My mistake, I have an italian and american passport. Seeking a visit to India from where Im at in Italy, so I figured it would be best to use the Italian passport for the Indian visa.

People lose passports every day and they are replaced. The key is to focus on what's needed to replace a passport. In OP's case, spending days tracking down a non-existent consulate when it's the local police station he needed, is a good example.

Don't worry about what the outsourced visa office thinks. All they care is that their contract requires them to physically see a valid passport. OP's won't be the first or last new or replacement document handled.

You won't find an Italian consulate in Milan. Try looking for the office that issues Italian passports.

Well, I learn something every time. The first place I went was to the police station yesterday to tell them I lost my passport. They said that if my passport has been stolen, I must do a "denuncio," or denounce it. That makes it invalid in case anyone else tries to use it. I told them I'm not going to denounce it yet, on the off chance the passports would be found.

I went to the Italian police stations, Trenitalia, every bar, restaurant, tailor, supermarket I'd been to in the last 24 hours: no luck.

I tried calling the US Embassy, but no one answers the phone. Finally, I found a US Embassy number that would answer, but you get to speak to someone back in the USA, not in Europe. She said she doesn't know what to do about passports lost in Europe, to call the Consulate in Milan, the one that never answers the phone.

So early this AM I personally went to the US Consulate in Milan. My plan was to then go to an Italian police station, because what the italian police didn't tell me the day before was that to get a passport in Italy you don't go to an italian federal office, you go to a police station.

There was a fairly long but quick moving line at the U.S. consulate that looked to be for Italians trying to do business.

The security guy walking up and down the line asked me what I wanted. I told him that I lost my passport. He moved me to a shorter line towards the front, and asked if I had a paper copy of my lost passport. I gave it to him and he said, "Let me take it inside to show to my colleague, wait here."

About ten minutes later, he brought me a mobile phone. The guy on the other end was the first one I encountered who spoke english to me. He said, "How did you lose your passport?" I said, "I don't know. I went to the Indian Consulate for a Visa, then I went home. A few days later I was looking for my passports, and I couldn't find them. I even called the Indian Consulate to see if I forgot it there, but they don't answer the phone. I also emailed them, but they take many days to answer their email, and it usually seems like server generated robo-mail."

I had never applied for a visa before. He told me, "Your passports are obviously at the Indian Consulate. When you apply for a visa they keep your passports. A visa is a stamp on your passport that lets you get in. If they don't keep your passport they can't issue the visa. We could give you an emergency passport, but there's no way you are going to get into India for a month on an emergency passport. If the Indian Consulate said they are going to evaluate you for a visa, and you handed them an envelope with papers, and they took most of the stuff out and handed you the envelope back, I'm sure they handed the envelope back to you without the passports."

A little while later I received this email from the Indian Consulate:

"Buongiorno,
non ci sono problemi con la sua pratica, stia tranquillo.

Grazie della collaborazione.
Con i nostri cordiali saluti.
Indian Visa Outsourcing Centre"

That basically just means that "there is no problem with my application, be tranquil." Since I had laid out well over $5,000 for the trip, I wasn't tranquil, but I guess this is reassuring.

Worrisome but educational experience. The people at the US Consulate in Milan, even though I never got inside the building, were very, very nice. Note, I don't have easy access to a printer here, and told them if they needed documents, they'd all be on my thumb drive. They said nothing electronic is allowed in the building, not even a thumb drive. So if you ever need to go their for something, make sure you find a place to print everything out, because all you can bring in is paper.

Not that I like traveling back and forth from Torino to Milano, but maybe this experience can be of use to someone. Just arrived back in Torino. Stopped at a cafe to check email, and just received the following from the Indian Consulate:

From: Indian Visa Outsourcing Centre <[email protected]>
Date: October 22, 2013 at 1:10:18 PM GMT+2
To: "Perche"
Subject: R: R: via

I passaporti sono in Consolato.
Grazie della collaborazione.

Con i nostri cordiali saluti.
Indian Visa Outsourcing Centre
Via Marostica 34
20146 Milano

Basically, the Indian consulate is confirming what the American Consulate said, that they have my passports. The Indian Consulate would not have given me back my passports while researching my suitability for a visa to their country. Much ado about nothing. The possibility of a lost passport is never fun, and perhaps someone else can learn from this mistake.

Glad it worked out. Why did you hand in both your American and your Italian passport? You only need to hand in one.

It's not all consulates nor all visa types require you to relinquish your passport for the duration of the processing.

Also, a country will NEVER have consulates in its own territory.

Thanks for the info on the paper/non electronic issue. When I am in Milan I work a few blocks from the consulate but had no idea about the restrictions on the electronics. Good luck on your trip to India.