Embassies and Consulates in Chicago

Most travelers hope they never need their government's help on a trip, since it usually means something has gone wrong. If you're visiting Chicago from another country and lose your passport or end up in trouble, the office to call is your country's consulate. It's not an embassy, and this page used to get that wrong.

Consulate or embassy?

Chicago doesn't have any embassies. A country's embassy is its main diplomatic mission, headed by the ambassador, and it's almost always in the capital. For the United States, that means Washington, D.C. Embassies deal with government-to-government business, and most also offer consular services.

What Chicago has is consulates. A consulate general is a mission in a major city that isn't the capital, and it provides a full range of consular services, from passports to help in an emergency. A plain consulate is similar but may do less. There are also honorary consuls, people outside a country's diplomatic service, often with a business of their own, whom a foreign government appoints to represent it. They can advise travelers in trouble and put them in touch with local authorities or the nearest full consulate, but they usually offer fewer services than a career consulate, so check what yours can actually do.

Chicago has a lot of them. The Chicago Consular Corps, the association of career and honorary consular officials in the city, says its members represent more than 76 countries, from Mexico, Poland, India and China to Iceland and Rwanda. Each office serves a defined area, called its consular district, so if you're traveling around the Midwest, check which office covers where you are.

How to find your consulate

For years the U.S. State Department published an official list of foreign consular offices in the United States. That list is no longer on the department's current website, and it has stopped publishing the related Diplomatic List of embassy staff. Your best source is your own government. Most foreign ministries list their embassy and consulates in the U.S. on their official websites, with contact details for emergencies. Look yours up and save the number before you fly, not after your bag goes missing.

The Consular Corps also keeps a list of member nations, which is a quick way to check if your country has an office in Chicago at all. It isn't a directory, and some entries are honorary posts, so confirm the details on your government's own site. If your country has no office here, the embassy in Washington or a consulate in another city will usually cover Chicago.

What a consulate can do for you

Services vary by country, but most consulates can help with the following.

• Replacing a lost, stolen or damaged passport, or issuing an emergency travel document that gets you home. The UK's emergency travel document is a typical example, usually valid for one journey.
• Giving you lists of local lawyers, interpreters, doctors and hospitals.
• Helping if you're arrested. Under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, foreign nationals who are arrested or detained in the U.S. must be told "without delay" that they can have their consulate notified, and consular officers have the right to visit them.
• Helping families after a death abroad, and registering births and deaths.

There are limits. The UK's guidance for British nationals who are arrested or detained abroad spells them out. The embassy or consulate can't get you out of prison, pay for lawyers, interpreters or fines, or give you legal advice. Other countries draw similar lines, which is one more reason to buy travel insurance.

One thing an older version of this page got wrong is visa extensions. If you're visiting the U.S. and want to stay longer, your consulate can't extend your stay. That's handled by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Form I-539, and you need to apply before your authorized stay runs out.

Visas for your next stop

If you're heading from Chicago to another country that needs a visa, that country's consulate in Chicago may be able to process it, as long as you live in or are applying within its consular district. Rules differ a lot between countries, so check the consulate's own website before you show up in person.

In an emergency

If someone's hurt or in danger, call 911 first. Call your consulate after that. For more on getting around and staying safe in the city, see our Chicago information page.