Lost Your Residence Card or Passport in Japan? Do This

Quick answer (30 seconds): Work in this order. (1) Go to the police, file a loss report, and get the loss certificate. (2) For a lost residence card (在留カード, zairyu card), apply for a reissue at your regional Immigration office within 14 days — it is free. (3) For a lost passport, contact your own country's embassy or consulate for a replacement; the police certificate is what links the two. Do the police step first, because both Immigration and your embassy will ask for that paper.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Rules, fees, and processing times change and differ by nationality and local office. Always confirm with the Immigration Services Agency, the police, and your embassy before you act.

First, breathe — then do these three things in order

Losing your ID in a foreign country feels like an emergency. The good news: Japan has a clear, well-worn process, and lost-document cases are routine for both the police and Immigration. The trick is doing the steps in the right order, because each step produces a document the next step needs.

1. Police — report the loss, get the loss certificate.
2. Immigration (Immigration Services Agency, ISA) — reissue your residence card.
3. Your embassy or consulate — replace your passport.

A residence card and a passport are issued by completely different authorities — Japan issues your residence card; only your home country can issue your passport. So if you lost both, you will end up doing both track 2 and track 3. Start with the police either way.

Step 1: File a police report and get the loss certificate

Go to the nearest police station or police box (交番, koban). Tell them what you lost, roughly where and when, and your personal details. They will file a loss report and issue a loss/theft certificate — in Japanese this is the ishitsu todoke juri shomeisho (loss report acceptance certificate). For a residence card, what matters most is the report receipt number.

Why this comes first: Immigration requires proof that the card was lost or stolen (a police report receipt number), and your embassy will also want a police report for a passport replacement. One police visit feeds both later steps.