Lost Passport, Driving Licence, PAN Card or National ID in Nepal: Which Office to Approach, and in What Order

Losing an official document in Nepal usually means more than one office visit, and each office has its own forms, fees and waiting times. The order matters, because several replacements lean on the same underlying record: your citizenship certificate. Get the sequencing right and you save yourself a wasted trip or two.

This page is a routing hub. It tells you which office handles which document and where the detailed, step-by-step guides live. Fees, forms and processing timelines change often, so they stay on the individual guides rather than being repeated here.

First step: file a police report

Before you approach any issuing office, file a lost-document report at the nearest police station. It is normally recorded as a general diary entry, or muchulka, and it does two things: it fixes the date of loss, and it gives you a paper trail if someone misuses the document later. Ask for a stamped copy. Most offices want to see it, and the photocopies you hand over should come from that stamped copy.

This one step applies to passports, driving licences, PAN cards and national ID cards alike, so do it first regardless of which document you lost.

Passport: Department of Passports

Office: Department of Passports at Tripureshwor in Kathmandu, or the designated district administration office if you are outside the Valley.

Typically requested: the police report, your citizenship certificate (original plus a photocopy), recent passport-size photographs, and the prescribed fee. If you still have the old passport number or expiry date written down somewhere, bring that too. It saves time at the counter.

For the full procedure: the application form, the fee schedule, the biometric appointment and the usual turnaround are covered in our guide to replacing a lost passport in Nepal, which follows the Department of Passports portal (reviewed October 2026).

Driving licence: Department of Transport Management

Office: the transport office that issued your licence, meaning the Department of Transport Management (DoTM) network office that handles your area or the zonal/district office where the original card was printed.

Typically requested: police report, citizenship certificate, your licence number if you noted it down, photographs and the applicable fee. Depending on the licence category, you may also be asked for a medical fitness certificate.

For the full procedure: online pre-application, fees by vehicle class and card printing times are in our guide to getting a duplicate driving licence in Nepal (procedure checked against the DoTM portal, October 2026).

PAN card: Inland Revenue Department

Office: the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) taxpayer service office tied to your registered address. If you fall under the Large Taxpayers Office, that is where you go instead.

Typically requested: police report, citizenship certificate, a copy of the lost PAN certificate if you have one, and the duplicate issuance fee.

For the full procedure: the IRD taxpayer services portal carries the current form and fee, and will tell you whether re-issue can be done online for your taxpayer category. Our lost PAN card guide walks through the steps (reviewed October 2026).

National ID: Department of National ID and Civil Registration

The national ID (Nagarik Parichaya Patra) was still being rolled out in phases, and as of 23 March 2026 enrolment centres were operating in stages. At that point the replacement workflow for a lost card, and whether a card can be re-printed at ward level or needs a district office visit, had not been fully standardised.

Where to start: your ward office. They will direct you to the district coordination committee or to the Department of National ID and Civil Registration at Babarmahal, depending on the protocol in force at the time.

Typically requested: police report, citizenship certificate, and any enrolment slip or national ID number you recorded when you enrolled.

Check before you travel. Centre locations and the exact steps for a lost card can change, so confirm with the department's official channels on the day you plan to act rather than relying on this page or any older blog post.

Order of operations at a glance

Why the citizenship record comes first

Three of the four replacements above lean on your citizenship record to confirm who you are. Ask the counter whether they can verify it electronically or need to see the physical certificate. If your citizenship certificate was lost along with everything else, deal with that first, because the other applications will stall without it.

Fraudulent use of someone else's lost document is an offence under Nepali law, which is another reason to file that police report early instead of putting it off until you reach the office.

Where these procedures were verified

• Department of Passports portal, procedure reviewed October 2026
• Department of Transport Management portal, procedure reviewed October 2026
• Inland Revenue Department taxpayer services page, reviewed October 2026
• Department of National ID and Civil Registration, status as of 23 March 2026. Verify the current protocol before acting.

If the document you lost is your citizenship certificate or your land ownership certificate, start with those guides instead: replacing a lost citizenship certificate and replacing a lost lalpurja (land ownership certificate).