Stabilise care and preserve the facts
If you are in a hospital or travelling between appointments, tell the treating or reception team that your passport is missing and ask for a written record of your registration, appointment, medicines, and next clinical contact. Keep care moving while securing documents. For a first enquiry, ask only broad administrative questions; do not request passport numbers, case files, or scans. For urgent symptoms, use the local emergency route first.
Write down when and where you last had the passport, the places visited, your flight or train booking, hotel registration, and any police or hospital reference. Copy other identity evidence only through a trusted, official channel. A factual timeline helps authorities and your care provider reconcile records; it is not a legal statement.
Complete the China-side loss report
China’s National Immigration Administration guidance says a foreigner with a lost passport should go to the local public-security entry–exit administration authority to apply for a passport-loss certificate, then contact the embassy or consulate of their country in China. In practice, ask the local police or public-security authority where the report must be made and what identification or evidence it will accept. Keep the report, receipt, and any Chinese-language reference together.
The NIA also publishes a service guide explaining that an exit-entry permit application can require a passport-loss report or an official note from the person’s embassy or consulate, plus other supporting material, when a valid passport is unavailable. That is an administrative pathway, not a guaranteed outcome. The local office may ask for an interview, photographs, tickets, or additional proof.
Contact your own embassy or consulate
Your nationality’s embassy or consulate handles the replacement passport or temporary travel document under its own rules. Ask its official website for the correct appointment or emergency channel, identity evidence, photographs, fees, and whether an urgent travel document is possible. A U.S. citizen, for example, is told to apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate and may be offered an emergency passport; that country-specific guidance should not be applied to another nationality.
Tell the consular officer that you are in China for care, give the broad travel date and local report reference, and ask what document will be issued and for what purpose. Do not assume an emergency document renews a Chinese visa or residence permit. The embassy cannot decide mainland immigration status, and a Chinese office cannot issue your national passport. Keep the workflows separate in your log.
Reconcile the care and travel record
After you receive a new passport or temporary document, ask the local exit–entry authority how to link or replace the Chinese visa, stay permit, or residence record. Bring the loss report, embassy note or new document, current appointment or travel evidence, and any registration record requested by that office. Do not infer that a passport replacement automatically transfers an old visa, or that a pending appointment changes a permitted stay.
At the hospital, update only the records that need the new document and request a receipt or written confirmation. Recheck the spelling, document number, date of birth, nationality, and appointment identity across the hospital, hotel, carrier, insurer, and immigration records. If a provider asks for a full scan, verify the official recipient and purpose first. A coordinator can help organise a checklist but cannot correct an authority’s record.
Plan departure without promises
Do not book a tight international departure until the issuing mission, Chinese exit–entry authority, and carrier have confirmed that the document and local formalities fit the itinerary. Published processing examples differ by nationality and urgency, and local offices may require additional review. There is no single China-wide completion deadline, automatic visa extension, or guaranteed hotel, rail, or border acceptance for a replacement document.
Keep a dated folder with the loss report, consular correspondence, new document, Chinese immigration receipt, care summaries, prescriptions, and travel confirmations. Ask who owns the next action and when to follow up. This guide offers administrative orientation only; legal, immigration, consular, and medical decisions belong to the relevant authorities and professionals.
