The Question Nobody Asks Until It's Almost Too Late
The family group chat has been buzzing for months. Flights are half-booked, the resort is on hold, cousins from three states are already coordinating outfits for the reunion photo. And then someone finally asks the question that stops the whole chat cold: does Grandma's passport expire before the trip? Does the baby even have one yet? Every year, BTN hears from families who did the hard part — getting fifteen relatives to agree on dates and a destination — only to watch the trip nearly collapse over a logistics problem that had a six-week runway to fix. This episode is the fix. We're walking through exactly what infants, kids, and grandparents need to get passport-ready for a multigenerational trip, what the government actually requires when one parent can't be at the application appointment, and the processing-time math that should shape your booking calendar right now.
Yes, Babies Need Their Own Passport
There's no age minimum for a US passport. A newborn traveling internationally needs a passport in their own name — there's no such thing as adding a baby to a parent's document. That means every infant on the reunion list needs a full application, a photo (harder than it sounds — more on that below), and, critically, both parents present.
For any applicant under 16, the State Department requires the child to appear in person, and it generally requires both parents or legal guardians to either appear together with the child at the acceptance facility, or for the non-appearing parent to provide notarized written consent. This is not a formality the clerk waives if you look trustworthy — it's a hard requirement built to prevent international parental abduction, and it's enforced consistently at passport acceptance facilities, post offices, and clerk of court offices nationwide.
The Form Every Family With One Traveling Parent Needs: DS-3053
This is the single most common reason family passport applications get bounced back or delayed, so it's worth its own section. If only one parent is going to be present when a child under 16 applies for a passport, the absent parent must complete Form DS-3053, Statement of Consent, and that form must be notarized. The absent parent also needs to include a copy of their own valid photo ID. Without it, the application simply will not be accepted — there's no verbal consent option, no "I'll email you and you can call them" workaround.
A few scenarios families ask about constantly:
Divorced or separated parents: The DS-3053 requirement applies regardless of custody arrangement, unless the appearing parent has documentation showing sole legal authority to apply for the child's passport — typically a certified court order granting sole legal custody or sole authority to obtain a passport without the other parent's consent. Bring the certified court order, not a photocopy from a home printer.
One parent is deceased: Bring a certified copy of the death certificate in place of the consent form.
A non-parent guardian is traveling with the child (a grandparent taking a grandchild without either parent present, for example): the guardian generally needs notarized statements of consent from both parents, or full legal guardianship documentation, plus their own ID. This is exactly the scenario that trips up multigenerational reunion trips where a grandparent is flying with a grandchild while the parents join later from a different city — plan for it well before the departure date, not the week of.
Bottom line for the family group chat: figure out now who is physically bringing each child to the passport appointment, and if it isn't both parents together, get the DS-3053 notarized weeks in advance. Notarization itself is quick (many banks, UPS Stores, and libraries offer it, often free or under $15), but it has to happen before the application is submitted, so don't leave it as a same-day errand.
Grandma and Grandpa: The Expired (or Expiring) Senior Passport
The other reunion-killer is the passport nobody's checked since the last big trip. US passports for adults are valid for 10 years, and it's easy for a grandparent who hasn't traveled internationally since a cruise five or six years ago to lose track of the exact expiration date — or to not realize that many countries require six months of validity remaining beyond your travel dates, which can functionally shorten that runway by half a year.
The good news: renewing an adult passport is usually the simplest part of this whole process, provided the existing passport qualifies for renewal by mail using Form DS-82. To qualify, the passport generally must have been issued within the last 15 years, issued when the applicant was 16 or older, be undamaged, and be submitted under the same name (or with a legal document supporting a name change, like a marriage certificate). If it qualifies, there's no in-person appointment required at all — just the form, a new photo, the old passport, and the fee, mailed in. If the old passport was lost, stolen, damaged, or issued more than 15 years ago, it's a full in-person DS-11 application instead, which takes more coordination but is still very manageable with enough lead time.
Current Processing Times — And Why You Should Check Again Before Booking
As of the State Department's most recent published estimates, routine processing runs about 4 to 6 weeks, and expedited service runs about 2 to 3 weeks — and it's worth saying plainly that these numbers have moved around meaningfully over the past couple of years, sometimes stretching to 10-13 weeks during high-demand periods and sometimes tightening up like they have recently. That volatility is exactly why BTN's standard advice is this: do not treat any processing-time figure, including the one in this article, as gospel when you book non-refundable travel. Check the live estimate at travel.state.gov's official processing-time page in the same week you submit your application, and again before you lock in flights.
Two more things that catch families off guard: those processing-time windows do not include mailing time to and from the passport agency, which the State Department itself notes can add roughly two weeks on each end. And expediting costs an additional $60 per application on top of the standard fee — multiply that across six family members and it adds up fast, which is exactly why starting early beats paying to rush later.
What It Actually Costs
Budget roughly $130 to $165 per passport book, depending on age and how you're applying. For adults 16 and up, the passport book application fee is $130; for a first-time applicant or anyone applying in person (which includes every child under 16, since minors can't use the mail-in renewal form), there's an additional $35 execution/acceptance fee paid directly to the facility, bringing the in-person total to about $165. Minors under 16 pay a $100 application fee plus that same $35 execution fee. Add passport photos (typically $10-15 per person at a pharmacy or the post office) and, if you're going the expedited route, another $60 per application. For a family of six spanning a newborn to a grandparent, it is realistic to budget $700-$1,000+ once photos and any expediting are factored in — plan it as its own line item in the trip budget, not an afterthought.
The Family Passport-Readiness Checklist
Work backwards from your travel date using this rough timeline:
9-12 months out: Pull every traveler's passport and check the expiration date against your travel date plus six months. Flag anyone expiring, expired, or passport-less. Confirm which children will need the DS-3053 consent form based on who's actually bringing them to the appointment.
6-9 months out: Book passport photo appointments and gather required documents — certified birth certificates for new applicants, current passports for renewals, certified court orders for custody situations, ID copies for any non-appearing parent. Schedule the notarization for any DS-3053 forms now, not later.
4-6 months out: Submit applications. This gives routine processing (currently 4-6 weeks) generous breathing room even if times tick upward, and still leaves a cushion if anything gets kicked back for a missing signature or document — which happens more often than families expect.
8 weeks out: If a passport still hasn't arrived, this is the moment to consider paying for expedited service or booking an in-person appointment at a regional passport agency for imminent travel.
Before you buy non-refundable flights or excursions: Re-check the live processing-time estimate on travel.state.gov one more time. It's a five-minute check that can save a family thousands of dollars in change fees.
BTN Insider Tips
Photograph everyone's documents. Keep phone photos of every family member's passport info page and travel insurance policy in a shared album before you leave — it makes replacing a lost document abroad dramatically faster.
Consider a passport-expediting service for the whole crew. Reputable expediting companies can shave real time off a stressed timeline and handle the DS-3053 notarization logistics for scattered co-parents — worth the fee when a reunion date is fixed and non-negotiable.
Insure the trip, not just the flights. A family-wide travel insurance policy that covers trip delay and cancellation is worth pricing out separately from any airline or resort protection plan, especially with a senior traveler or infant in the mix.
Don't forget the passport card is not enough for flying internationally. The card works for land and sea border crossings to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, but you cannot fly internationally on a card alone — make sure every flying family member has the passport book.
Coming Up Next in Black Family Travel
With documents handled, the next stop in this series turns back to the fun part of reunion planning. Subscribe to the BTN podcast and check the Black Family Travel series hub so you don't miss what's next.
Listen & Follow
Catch the full audio conversation on the BTN podcast, and follow Black Travel Now across social media for the rest of the Black Family Travel series as it drops.
