Why did my passport stamp not appear?
Almost always location. A stamp needs your location, and it needs you to have been near the church.
Your check-in is saved and your stamp is missing. That is a confusing pair, so here is exactly what decides it.
A check-in and a stamp are two different things. The check-in records your visit. The stamp confirms you were there. Sacred Steps confirms that using the location captured on your device at the moment you checked in.
1. No location was captured
This is the most common cause by far. If you declined the location prompt, or if your device could not get a fix, the check-in still saves but there is nothing to confirm against, so no stamp is awarded.
The app tells you which happened. On the screen right after you submit, it says either that your location was saved for stamp verification, or that no location was captured and stamps may not be awarded. If you saw the second message, this is your answer.
Signal indoors is a real cause here. Thick stone walls block satellite and mobile signal, and a location fix can quietly fail inside a church even when you granted permission.
2. You were too far from the church
If a location was captured but it was a long way from the church, the stamp is not awarded. This is what stops a stamp being collected from the other side of the world.
3. The stamp is still being worked out
The check-in saves first, and the stamp is decided a moment afterwards. If you looked immediately, give it a little time and reopen your passport. Your passport is under My Passport on the Profile tab.
4. The check-in is still sitting in Drafts
If the submit did not complete, the check-in may have been kept as a draft rather than sent. Drafts wait under Drafts in the menu on your profile. Nothing is stamped until the check-in is actually submitted.
What to check, in order
- Open your passport again, in case the stamp has since landed.
- Check Drafts on your profile, in case the check-in never sent.
- Check that Sacred Steps is allowed to use your location in your device settings.
- Try another check-in outdoors, or near a door, where a location fix is easier to get.
Still not right?
Email [email protected] and tell us the church name and roughly when you checked in. We can look at the record.
For how a check-in works from the start, read how do I check in at a church.
Last updated 7 September 2026.