What happens to cards, keys and IDs when you change phone?

Nothing travels by copying

A payment credential is provisioned to one device, which the two cards page describes from the other end: adding a card to a phone and a watch produces two credentials, not one shared between them.

The same is true of a transit pass, a hotel key, a car key and an identity attestation. Each was issued to a device by a party that decided to issue it, which is what makes them worth anything, and it is also what stops them moving with a backup.

So a wallet restored from a backup arrives empty of everything that mattered, and the phone shows a list of things to add rather than a list of things it has. That is the design working, and it surprises people every time.

Each at the pace of its issuer

A bank card is usually the fastest, because the issuer automated it long ago and the verification is one you can complete on the device.

A transit credential depends on the operator: a balance and a season ticket have to move in its system, which is the transfer the transit card page describes, and some operators do it in an application while others want a counter.

A car key goes through the vehicle manufacturer's process, and a key someone shared with you has to be shared again, since the invitation issued a key to the old device rather than to you, as the sharing page sets out.

A building or hotel key comes from whoever administers the door, and an identity attestation is enrolled again from the source, which for a document means the tap the passport page describes.

An order that saves trouble

Set the new phone up and provision the payment cards first, because they are the ones you will miss within the hour.

Keep the old phone until each credential is working on the new one, tested against a real terminal, a real gate or a real door rather than against a screen that says it is ready.

Deal with the slow ones deliberately: anything that needs an office, an administrator or an appointment is worth starting before the old phone is wiped, and anything that involves a physical document needs that document in your hand.

And note what you had. A wallet's contents are invisible once the device is gone, and a list written before the change is the difference between a morning and a week.

What the old phone still holds

Credentials do not vanish because a new phone exists. A transit pass on an old phone keeps working until it is removed or revoked, and a key keeps opening a door until the issuing system says otherwise.

Remove them deliberately, which is also what protects a device being sold or handed on: erasing a phone removes the credentials it held, and doing it through the wallet leaves the issuer's records tidy.

The exception is the one nobody thinks about: a door that never learns anything, described in the home keys page, keeps accepting a key until something carries the revocation to it.