“All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”
Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda
A worker whose passport is in someone else's safe usually believes there is nothing to be done, because the person holding it has said so. There is a government portal, a mission in the country you are standing in, and an established procedure for exactly this. None of it is secret and none of it costs money. The darkness here is mostly not knowing.
Sources: Ministry of External Affairs, Consular Complaints and Grievances, and the MADAD portal, launched 21 February 2015 and covering all Indian Missions and Posts abroad along with the branch secretariats at Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Kolkata; Pravasi Bharatiya Bima Yojana 2017. Checked August 2026.
Whose document it is
An Indian passport is the property of the Government of India, issued to you. It is not collateral, not a security deposit against your contract, and not something an employer is entitled to hold so that you do not leave. Employers who take passports do it for one reason, which is that a worker who cannot travel cannot walk away from bad conditions, unpaid wages or a job that turned out to be a different job.
Some countries in the region have moved against the practice in their own labour law, and the position differs by state and keeps changing. What does not differ is that you are entitled to approach your own country's mission, and that they deal with this constantly.
What to gather, before you ask anyone for help
Every route below works better with evidence, and evidence is easiest to collect while you are calm rather than at the point of crisis. Do this today if your passport is not in your own hands.
- Photograph every page of your passport if you still have it, and email the images to yourself. If it is already taken, use any old photocopy or the scan from your visa application.
- Save your passport number, date and place of issue somewhere you can reach without the document, including on paper with family at home.
- Keep the contract, the offer letter and any receipt in the same place. A copy at home in India is worth more than a copy on a phone that can be taken.
- Note the employer's full legal name, the site address and your supervisor's name. A complaint against "the company" is much harder to act on.
- Write down dates. When the passport was taken, by whom, what was said. Memory blurs and a contemporaneous note does not.
- Find your nearest Indian Mission's contact details now and save them offline.
Where to go
| Route | What it is for | What it can do |
|---|---|---|
| The Indian Embassy or Consulate | Where you are, right now | Take up the case with the employer, and issue an emergency travel document if you need to return without the passport |
| MADAD portal | Registering the grievance formally | Puts the complaint on the record and lets you and your family track it |
| eMigrate complaint | Against the recruiting agent | Acts on the agent's registration, which is what they actually stand to lose |
| The country's own labour authority | Wages, hours, conditions | Varies by state, and the mission can advise whether it is worth using |
| Family in India | Doing what you cannot from a site | Can file on MADAD and visit the branch secretariat on your behalf |
The fourth row is worth reading twice if you are the family rather than the worker. You do not have to be abroad to act. MADAD accepts a complaint filed from India, and one of the four MEA branch secretariats on the system is in Hyderabad.
What not to do
- Do not pay anyone to get it back. Not the supervisor, not a fixer, not an agent. The document is yours already.
- Do not simply stop turning up without advice. In some states absconding has its own consequences and can put you in the wrong on a record that follows you.
- Do not hand over the replacement too. Workers who get a passport back sometimes surrender it again a month later under the same pressure.
- Do not stay silent to protect the job. The job that requires your passport in someone else's safe is the job most likely to stop paying you.
How to avoid it before you fly
The strongest protection is the boring one: go through a route where the employer is on the record, the contract is filed, and someone in India can be held to account. That is the whole argument for the lawful process, and it is why the eMigrate record matters more than it looks. Ask, before you accept, whether the company holds passports. The answer, and how readily it comes, tells you a great deal.
And read the contract properly before signing. A clause permitting the employer to hold documents is not something to discover afterwards. Our twelve checks on an offer letter cover what should and should not be in one.
Where Disha fits, honestly
Disha Global Workforce recruits candidates with Non-ECR passports and a minimum qualification of 10+2, for the countries we actually serve in the Gulf, Southeast Asia and parts of Europe. We work under the authorisation of a licensed Recruiting Agent.
We are not a consular service and we cannot recover a document from a foreign employer. What we can do, if you or your family are dealing with this, is help you work out which route above applies and what to write, including for a candidate we did not place. Nobody should be navigating this alone because they went through a different agency.
Is your passport being held?
Message us with the country, the employer's name and what you were told. We will help you work out which route applies and what to put in writing.
Frequently asked questions
Is my employer allowed to keep my passport?
An Indian passport is the property of the Government of India, issued to you. It is not collateral or a security deposit against your contract. Several countries in the region have moved against the practice in their own labour law and the position differs by state, but what does not differ is your entitlement to approach the Indian Mission where you are, which handles this situation constantly.
How do I get home if my employer will not return my passport?
Approach the nearest Indian Embassy or Consulate. Where an employer refuses to hand the passport over and a worker needs to return, the Mission can issue an emergency travel document to travel on. Register the grievance on the MADAD portal as well so the case is formally on record and trackable by you and your family.
What is MADAD?
MADAD is the Ministry of External Affairs online consular grievance system, launched on 21 February 2015. All Indian Missions and Posts abroad are on it, along with the MEA branch secretariats at Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Kolkata. A complaint can be filed and tracked, and it can be filed from India by a family member rather than only by the worker abroad.
Can my family in India do anything while I am abroad?
Yes, and this is the part most families do not know. A grievance can be filed on MADAD from India on the worker's behalf, and one of the four MEA branch secretariats on the system is in Hyderabad. A complaint against the recruiting agent can also be made through the eMigrate portal, which acts on the agent's registration, the thing they actually stand to lose.
Should I pay someone to get my passport back?
No. The document is already yours, and paying a supervisor, a fixer or an agent to release it rewards the person who took it and leaves you with no record of what happened. Use the Mission and the MADAD portal, which cost nothing, and keep every message and receipt as evidence.
This article describes the position and the available routes as they stood on 30 August 2026 and is general information, not legal advice. Labour law differs by country and changes. In an emergency, contact the nearest Indian Embassy or Consulate directly.