Italian emergency travel document (ETD)
An Italian citizen who is abroad without a valid passport or identity card, because the document has been lost, stolen or destroyed or because it expired unnoticed, obtains from the consulate an emergency travel document, the ETD, which allows one journey only: the return to Italy or to the country of permanent residence. It is a document of necessity, not a short passport, and the consulates issue it under conditions which differ according to whether the applicant is a visitor or a resident of the district.
Visitors and residents
The Consulate General in London issues the emergency travel document to Italian citizens who do not reside in the United Kingdom: a visitor whose passport is stolen in London obtains it in order to return to Italy, or to the country where the registration in the AIRE shows that he lives. A citizen who resides in the United Kingdom does not obtain it, because for him the consulate issues the ordinary documents, the passport and the identity card, and in a proven urgency issues the passport in an accelerated procedure described below. A citizen who holds a valid electronic identity card receives no emergency document in any case, because the card itself allows the journey.
The applicant attends in person, and so does a child, even an infant. A child born abroad whose birth has never been registered in Italy receives no Italian document of any kind, the emergency one included, until the birth has been transcribed, and a person who has never held an Italian document is asked to prove the citizenship before anything is issued.
What to bring
The consular form, one photograph to the international standard taken within six months, a copy of an identity document bearing a photograph and a signature, or, failing that, a witness who holds one, and a copy of the ticket where the journey is already booked. The loss or the theft is declared before the consular officer under the rules on substitute declarations, and the police report, where one has been made, is attached. For a child the form is signed by both parents, with copies of their documents and of the document of the adult who travels with the child, and the signature of a parent who is not a citizen of the European Union is authenticated in person or before a notary with legalisation. The consulate asks visitors to attend two or three days before the departure, during the morning hours set aside for the service, and on a weekend only by appointment with the duty officer and only for a journey which falls on the weekend.
The document is free of charge, because the consular tariff provides that travel documents of this kind are issued without fee. It is valid for five days from the issue, for the single journey, and it is surrendered to the border police on arrival. A passport reported lost or stolen and found afterwards is no longer valid, and the report cannot be withdrawn.
A citizen resident in Milan, registered in no AIRE, has her bag stolen in Edinburgh on a Thursday, with the passport inside, two days before her flight home. She reports the theft to Police Scotland, obtains the crime reference, and attends the Consulate General in Edinburgh on the Friday morning with a photograph, the airline confirmation and a photograph of her passport kept on the telephone. She leaves with the emergency document, flies on the Saturday, hands the document to the border police in Milan and applies for a new passport at the Questura.
The European emergency document
Since December 2025 the Italian consulates issue the emergency travel document in the uniform European model, a form with a security sticker, under the directive of 2019 which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs applied by decree in 2024. The same model allows the consulate of any member State to issue the document to a citizen of another member State which has no representation in the country, after a consultation of a few working days with the State of nationality, so that an Italian stranded in a country without an Italian consulate turns to the consulate of another member State, and a citizen of another member State stranded in a country where only Italy is represented turns to the Italian one. The document covers the journey and two further days, and in no case more than fifteen.
Residents in an urgency
A resident of the London district who needs a passport without delay writes to the consulate with at least three preferred dates and with the proof of the urgency: a serious reason of health or of family certified by an institution, or a reason of work set out on the letterhead of the employer and signed by a senior manager. A ticket alone, a vague medical note, a letter from a private person, a message or a self-declaration are not accepted, and the procedure is not open to a first Italian passport. The urgency carries an additional fee on top of the fee for the passport, and the passport is issued on the day. Outside an urgency the ordinary appointment for an adult also ends, as a rule, with the passport issued on the same day, while a child under twelve receives it by post, and the honorary consulates in Bedford, Bristol, Cardiff, Peterborough and Watford collect the application, and the biometric data where they are equipped for it, and the passport follows from London in about twelve weeks.
A citizen registered in the AIRE who is in Italy may apply at any Questura, which asks the consulate for an authorisation normally given within a week. The law also provides, for the person who is temporarily unable to give fingerprints and only in a proven necessity, a temporary passport of sixteen pages without a chip, valid for at most one year, which the United States do not accept under the visa waiver programme.
If you are abroad without a valid document, or you need a passport sooner than the ordinary appointment allows, write to us with your situation and the date of the journey. We tell you which document the consulate will issue, what it will ask for, and how to put the registers in order where that is the obstacle.