Travel documents: what does your trip actually require?
An expired kids’ passport, a missing consent letter, six-months validity rules: the classic trip killers. This checklist sorts out what to verify for your destination.
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What actually matters
Most entry problems do not happen at the border; they happen weeks earlier at the desk: the child’s passport expired (kids’ passports are valid for shorter periods), the passport misses the six-months validity many countries require, or one parent travels alone with a child and has no notarized consent letter from the other parent. All of it is easy to fix four to eight weeks before departure, and expensive to fix later.
Our check builds the verification list for your specific destination: which documents per person, which validity rules typically apply, what minors traveling with one parent need, and which copies and backups are worth having. And it tells you honestly which points to verify with the binding sources: the U.S. State Department’s country pages and the destination’s embassy. Entry rules change, and a free tool is no substitute for official information.
Frequently asked questions
Many countries require six months of validity beyond your return date; some accept validity through the trip. The checklist names the typical rule for your destination; the binding answer is on travel.state.gov.
Many countries expect a notarized consent letter from the non-traveling parent, sometimes with a copy of their ID. The checklist includes that item whenever your setup looks like it.
No, deliberately not. The check tells you which points to verify; the binding answers come from travel.state.gov and the destination country’s embassy.
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