If you are travelling across international borders, it is important to know whether or not you need a consent to travel letter with certain travelling companions. Without the proper preparation and documentation, you could wind up getting stopped at the border and turned around, so it is best to know ahead of time if a consent to travel letter is required for your situation. At Sidhu & Associates, we provide various notarization services for all kinds of legal documents, and we can help you with making consent to travel letters official.
What is a Consent to Travel Letter?
A consent to travel letter is intended to allow children to travel across borders or by air without the accompaniment of one or all of their legal guardians. These documents are intended to ensure that all legal guardians of a child are kept apprised of the location of their children. They are often used when a child goes on vacation, school trips, religious travel, or other types of cross-border excursions. Consent to travel letters are used to give permission for a minor to travel with one guardian or parent (when custody is shared), family, friends, and other groups.
Who Needs a Consent to Travel Letter?
Although there is no legal requirement in Canada for a child to have a consent to travel letter in order to cross borders, it is often required in other countries and by certain organizations, such as airlines. Even in cases where a consent to travel letter is not required, it can often cause delays to not have one when travelling without a guardian.
Any child who qualifies as a minor should be carrying a letter of consent when travelling without all of their guardians. Whether the guardians or parents are married, separated, divorced, common law, or have any other status of relationship, a consent to travel letter should be carried anytime one or both individuals are not accompanying the child while travelling.
What Should a Consent to Travel Letter Include?
A consent to travel letter should include a written explanation from the guardian or guardians being left behind about where the child is permitted to go and the planned timeline for their travels. The letter should also include information about who the minor is permitted to travel with and signatures from all guardians. In order to ensure that the letter is official and stands up to scrutiny at border crossings, it should be notarized.
If you are interested in learning more about whether or not you need a consent to travel letter, or if you want to find out about any of our notarizing services, please contact Sidhu & Associates at 604-859-4825 or fill out a contact form on our website.
