We recommend you visit https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/passports/under-16.html for additional information and requirements to apply for a passport on behalf of a minor child.
If you are a parent who is applying without the other parent’s consent, you must bring and fill out all these papers:
- Complete U.S. Passport Application (Form DS-11)
- Complete Sections 1 through 8 on the Statement of Exigent/Special Family Circumstances (Form DS-5525).
If you don’t know the answer to a question, write “I don’t know.”
Document your search efforts
We understand it may be difficult to find the other parent, and it is likely you will not be able to find that parent, but it is very important that you show a genuine effort to try to find them. If the State Department is not convinced that you made a good faith effort to try to find the father, they may reject your application.
- In section 7 of Form DS-5525 describe ALL of your efforts to try and find the other parent.
- You should contact at least 2 different people including friends, family members, former employers, or former landlords to ask for the non-applying parent’s current address and write down exactly what each person tells you.
- You should look on the internet and in telephone directories and write down exactly what you find.
- If you need more space to describe your attempts to contact the non-applying parent, continue on a separate sheet of paper.
Unwed mothers with no custody order
If you are the mother of the child, you currently live in Georgia, you were never married to the child’s father, and the father never filed an action to legitimate the child, then in Section 8 you should write the following:
I have sole custody of (your child’s name) by operation of Georgia law because the child was born out of wedlock and the father has never legitimated the child. Attached is a copy of O.C.G.A. § 19-7-25 and my child’s birth certificate. If applicable also add: “Additionally, I have searched for my child’s father to try to obtain his consent but I have been unable to find him.”
- Attach a copy of the Georgia law which states only the mother is entitled to custody of a child born out of wedlock (O.C.G.A. 19-7-25).
Attach additional evidence
Attach any additional relevant evidence such as a copy of your sole custody order, death certificate, incarceration order, deportation order, temporary protective order, or other evidence of special circumstances.
Include additional details
Describe any additional special or emergency circumstances which require the travel in Section 8.
Make and keep copies
Make a copy of everything you plan to submit to the Department of State and keep all of those documents together for your records.
- Send the original Passport Application for Minor, original Statement of Exigent/Family Circumstances, and any additional relevant evidence .
- Attach a copy of your child’s birth certificate – do NOT send the original.
