Traveling With the Grandkids? Why You Might Need a Travel Consent Letter

Every year around this time, I get a run of calls from grandparents planning a summer trip with the grandkids — Colorado, Branson, sometimes further. Most of them are calling because a friend told them they'd need a "permission letter" for the airline, and they want to know if that's true. The honest answer is: usually not required, but you'll be glad you have one if anything goes sideways at the gate.

What a travel consent letter actually is

It's a document, signed by a child's legal parent or parents, stating that they consent to the child traveling with a named adult — a grandparent, aunt, family friend — during a specific window of time, to a specific destination. When it's notarized, it carries more weight with anyone who might question it, because a notary has confirmed the parent who signed it is who they say they are.

Why it's not required but often expected anyway

For most domestic travel, no federal law requires a consent letter. Nobody at a Kansas airport is going to stop a grandmother and grandchild boarding a flight to Denver over paperwork. Where it matters more is international travel — many countries' border officials, and some airlines operating international routes, have gotten more cautious about children traveling without both legal parents present, specifically to guard against child trafficking and custody abduction. A notarized consent letter is the document that resolves the question on the spot instead of turning into a long conversation with a customs officer while your flight boards without you.

Exactly what's expected varies by destination country and by airline, and it changes over time — I'd point you to your airline and the destination country's current entry requirements rather than assume last year's rules still apply.

What to include

• The child's full legal name and date of birth
• The traveling adult's full name and relationship to the child
• Exact travel dates and destination
• Contact information for the parent or parents who aren't traveling
• A notarized signature from the parent(s) granting consent

If the parents are divorced or separated

This is worth extra care. If there's a custody arrangement in place, it may specify who can consent to travel and under what conditions — I always ask, gently, whether a custody order exists before a signing like this, because it changes who legally needs to sign. Getting consent from only one parent when a custody agreement requires both can create real problems, not just paperwork ones. If there's any uncertainty here, that's a conversation for a family law attorney before it's a conversation for a notary.

I'd rather notarize a letter that never gets asked for than have a family find out at the gate that they needed one they don't have. It's cheap insurance against a genuinely bad day.

Timing

Get this done well before your travel date, not the morning you're leaving. It takes fifteen minutes at an appointment, but appointments still need to be scheduled, and a mobile notary covering rural distances — which is most of what I do — appreciates more than a day's notice when possible. For a broader look at what to have ready before any notary appointment, see our appointment checklist.

What the letter typically looks like

There's no single official form — most consent letters are a fairly plain document, but a complete one usually reads something like: a statement that the parent(s) named are the child's legal parents or guardians; the child's full name and date of birth; the name of the adult traveling with the child and their relationship to them; the specific dates and destination of travel; a statement that the parent(s) consent to the trip; and contact information for the non-traveling parent(s), in case anyone needs to verify the letter's authenticity while you're away. The notarized signature goes at the bottom, confirming the parent who signed is who they say they are.

If a parent won't sign

This comes up more than people expect, especially in situations with strained family relationships. I want to be direct about it: if one legal parent refuses to consent to travel, a notary can't override that, and neither can a letter signed only by the other parent claiming authority they don't have. If there's a custody order specifying travel rights, that order controls the situation, not a hastily drafted consent letter. This is squarely a family law question, and if you're running into resistance from a co-parent, that's a conversation for an attorney, not something to work around with paperwork.

Common questions

Does the letter need to be in English if we're traveling to a non-English-speaking country? Some countries prefer or require a translated copy alongside the English original. Check your destination country's current entry requirements, since this varies and changes.

Can I use the same letter for multiple trips? Only if it's written broadly enough to cover a range of dates and doesn't specify a single trip. Many people prefer a trip-specific letter for clarity, especially for international travel.

Does the child need to sign anything? No — the consent is from the legal parent or guardian, not the child, regardless of the child's age.

It's not just grandparents — solo parents run into this too

I framed this article around grandparents because that's who calls me most in the summer, but the same logic applies to a parent traveling alone with their own children, particularly internationally, particularly if the other parent isn't along for the trip. Some countries' immigration officials have specifically increased scrutiny on a single adult traveling with a child who shares a different last name, as an extra safeguard against parental abduction. A notarized letter from the non-traveling parent, even when both parents are on good terms and there's no custody dispute at all, can smooth this over quickly if a question ever comes up at a border crossing. It's the same document, the same notarization, just a slightly different family situation prompting it.

What if the other parent is unreachable, not uncooperative

Occasionally a parent is simply hard to reach — deployed overseas, working somewhere without reliable phone access — rather than unwilling to consent. If you're in this situation and time is short, reach out well before your trip; there may be alternative ways to document consent, but they need to be sorted out with enough lead time to actually work, not discovered the week of travel.

Keep a copy with you, not just at home

Pack the notarized original in your carry-on or wherever you'll have it on hand at check-in and at the border, not checked in luggage. I'd also suggest a photo of it on your phone as a backup — it won't replace the original if an official wants to see it, but it's a reasonable fallback if the paper copy gets separated from you somehow during a long trip.

Whatever the trip — a week in Colorado or three weeks overseas — the same fifteen minutes of preparation applies. It's a small step that's easy to skip and mildly annoying to arrange, right up until the moment it isn't, standing at a gate with a confused official and a flight about to close.