Travel Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for road warriors and seasoned travelers. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I sent my passport in to the DVLA in the UK in January and they lost it somehow, so I only got it back six months later.
One week before I got my passport back I applied for a new one at the consulate. I'm still waiting the six weeks to get this passport back.
Is my old passport still valid? I need to apply for a Schengen visa to travel to Spain at the end of August and can't seem to find out if it's possible on my old passport. It is still valid until 2018.
I can't speak definitively for South Africa but standard procedure is to immediately cancel any passport that is reported as lost. This is to prevent fraudulent use of the passport by somebody who found or stole it. It would be very surprising if South Africa didn't do this, as it would make it much harder for other countries to trust South African passports.
You'll need to use the new passport for all future travel.
