Consent to travel or departure of a child abroad

Clients often turn to our office asking what is a document confirming the permission of the parent or parents for child departure or travel abroad and how should it look like. The comment of experts of our office on this issue is presented below.

Is it worth to draw a consent for child departure?

The Constitution of the Republic of Estonia guarantees every resident of the country, including a child, the inalienable right to leave the territory of the Republic of Estonia, which can only be limited by a court decision in cases established by law, which means that the state bodies of the Republic of Estonia have no right to prevent an underage resident from leaving the territory of the country without a particularly strong reason.

However, the need to obtain an appropriate permit most frequently comes from foreign countries. As usual, there are no problems with the member states of the European Union, and the competent authorities of these states do not require any entry or exit permits. In most cases, the above-mentioned permission is necessary and relevant in such countries as the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey and Egypt, where the requirement of consent to enter or exit can be fixed both on a legislative basis and at the level of internal orders of various state authorities. As practice shows, the border guard of Estonia and foreign countries is especially carefully checking those children whose name is different from the name of the accompanying parent or other accompanying person.

In order to avoid problems when crossing the border and other bureaucratic troubles, the lawyers of our office strongly recommend to obtain consent for the child travel abroad, regardless of the country of destination of your jouney.

Preparation of notarized consent to departure of a child abroad

Permission for the departure or travelling of a child abroad is given by the parents in writing in the form of consent, and signatures of the parents on this consent must be obligatorily certified by a notary. If necessary, this document must be legalized with the apostille (not required for Russian Federation and Ukraine).

Our lawyers have many years of experience drawing notarial documents of various types. The cost of preparing the text of the consent to departure ar travelling of a child abroad is EUR 45, the cost of one signature of one parent certification is EUR 15.30. The apostille adds to the price EUR 45. It follows that the prices for these services in our office are as follows:

• the consent for child departure abroad from one parent – EUR 75
• the consent for child departure abroad from both parents – EUR 90

Consent can be issued and certified in Estonian, Russian or English, the validity of the document may be limited by specific dates, or the document is issued until the child reaches adulthood. Preparation of the document takes 1-2 working days.

Contact the lawyers of Kalashnikov Law Office