The country where Australians are most likely to fall victim to thieves

February 16, 2026 — 5:00am

What’s the country where you’re most likely to part company with your passport? Italy. Pickpockets can be found everywhere, and it’s not just Australians who are targeted, but Italy is numero uno for Aussies losing their passport.

The reasons are glaringly obvious. Millions of tourists in crowded places equals opportunity for pickpockets, but the key is distraction, and Italy has much to distract you. While you’re admiring Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, or ambling through St Mark’s Square in Venice, a thief might be set to pounce.

A crowded train or bus is a happy hunting ground for thieves and here too, Italy has plenty of packed trains and buses. The action is swift and there’s often a well-oiled machine at work. The goods are quickly passed from one team member to another. Even if you identify the culprit, they probably won’t have the goods on them. Italian vigilantes have taken to calling out pickpockets when they catch them in the act, following them around and even spraying dye on their backs.

It’s one of the facts that emerges from the latest Consular State of Play, published annually by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). In DFAT’s own words, the Consular State of Play “is a snapshot of the consular assistance and crisis support DFAT provides to Australians overseas.” Central to that, the document charts the reasons Australian travellers have called for consular assistance, a consular case. It might be an accident that requires hospitalisation, theft or falling foul of the law and ending up in prison.

Consular case statistics are a rough measure of the risk when you visit a particular country, not only to your passport but also to your freedom and wellbeing. If personal security is a high priority when you travel overseas, the Consular State of Play might help narrow down your choices, or at least tell you what kind of threat you could face.

While it might be perilous for passports, Italy is far from the number one country where Australians are likely to call for consular assistance. That title goes to Thailand, which recorded 1017 consular cases in 2024-25, more than four times the figure for Italy. Thailand is the country where Australians are most likely to suffer illness and hospitalisation, to request welfare assistance and to face immigration detention. It’s also the country where they’re most likely to go missing, a “Whereabouts Enquiry” in DFAT parlance.

Thailand was also the second-highest country for arrests of Australians (behind China) and the second-highest for Australian assault victims (behind Indonesia). Thailand is also the most likely place to die. A total of 346 Australians died in Thailand in 2024-25. That’s one out of every six of the Australians who died overseas that year. According to the State of Play document, many of those deaths involve “older Australians who had moved to Thailand to retire or for late-in-life marriage.”

Thailand is even more risky than those figures suggest. The country ranked sixth on the popularity list for Australian travellers in 2025, with 641,000 visitors recorded that year. Indonesia, which welcomed over a million more Australian visitors than Thailand in 2025, recorded just 685 consular cases against Thailand’s 1017 cases. Compared with Japan, one of the safest countries for visitors, Australians are about five times more likely to register a consular case when they visit Thailand.

Crisis cases

Another function of DFAT is to assist Australians, permanent residents and their immediate family members caught up in wars, civil unrest or natural disasters. In 2023–24, DFAT’s crisis response teams assisted 47 individuals in Ukraine, 1581 in Lebanon, 204 in Sudan and 3643 in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The total number receiving crisis response assistance that year was 6160.

In 2024-25 that number skyrocketed to 17,095. Some of that increase was due to the Vanuatu earthquake of December 2024, others to Israel’s attack on Iran, but the bulk of crisis cases resulted from the ongoing Israel-Lebanon conflict during that period.

Despite the increase in crisis cases, that number pales compared to the number of crisis cases during COVID. In 2019-20, that figure was 41,108 which included 36,600 crisis assisted returns, with similar numbers the following year.

Visits to the Smart Traveller website

Fewer travellers are visiting the Smart Traveller website. In 2024-25 there were 9.93 million visitors to the website, about 600,000 fewer than the previous year. However, the number of subscribers to Smart Traveller’s email updates in 2024-25 was up, 63,000 more than in the previous year. The countries of concern to travellers have also changed. In 2023-24, the top five destinations that travellers consulted on the Smart Traveller website were Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and Egypt. In 2024-25, there were more visits to Smart Traveller’s US travel advisory pages than any other country apart from Indonesia. This coincides with the advent of the second Trump administration, and suggests Australian travellers might be wary of visiting the USA when that country is conducting more invasive scrutiny of incoming visitors, which includes investigating the social media posts of some travellers.

The issue of travel insurance caught the attention of DFAT’s fact finders, who revealed that one in seven Australians were not covered by travel insurance on their most recent overseas trip. According to the State of Play document, 31 per cent thought their destination was safe, 27 per cent didn’t think it was value for money and 20 per cent were on a short trip. While DFAT highlighted the hazards of travelling without adequate insurance cover, that is unlikely to sway anyone who thinks travel insurance is too expensive or unnecessary since trouble won’t come their way. A good friend suffered life-changing injuries from a scooter accident in Bali. He was covered by travel insurance, but never assume you’re bulletproof.