Child's passport photo

[dreamer24]

Hi, just looking for a bit of advice please.
My DD (3) has a passport that was issued when she was 13 months old for our first holiday. She very clearly looks like a baby on the photo. Obviously now as a 3 year old she looks very different to that photo. The passport is valid until May 2027 and we are planning to book a holiday for May 2025, when she will have just turned 4. Does anyone know if we will need to renew the passport because the photo will look nothing like her by this point, despite the fact the passport itself will have 2 year left on it?

Any advice appreciated, thank you

You definitely don't have to. It I'd valid until the date written.

Thanks @RhetoricalRectangle - I'm just worried about the fact that she won't be recognisable by the passport photo!

I mean, obviously she still has similar features - but she looks like a little girl now, vert different to a 13 month old baby.

No. You renew it when it runs out. They might ask her her name and if she's with her parents. This is why you child passport renewals are at 5 not 10 years, they change so much.

My little one was 4 months old on passport photo and used it until it ran out - never questioned anywhere

Yep - both my kids were weeks old in their photo and used for the full five years. German passport control seem to find this very irritating and always told us to get it changed but the passport is legally valid

Both DDs had their passport photos taken at about three weeks' old. No way whatsoever of recognising either of them from the photo, but no need to upgrade it until it expires.

It’s almost £60 to renew a child’s passport-don’t do it until you need to!

Border control are used to this. There is no need to renew- if it was problematic they would not issue long passports for babies

Thanks all, that's reassuring! I'm just unclear on how they verify the identity of the child when the child looks nothing like the baby on the photo 😬 But maybe I'm overthinking it 😂

It's normal. Think about it, there must be hundreds of thousands of passports issued to babies each year. If they needed changing before the passport expires you'd know about it. There would be a hundred threads on here complaining that "I've been told to change my DD's passport because she looks different, but I think she's still a cute baby!"

Nah. DD's passport was her when she was 3 months old. We only changed it when it ran out. It seemed to make the border control people chuckle.

Both of ours had theirs from being just 6mths old, DS6 is onto his 2nd passport now, DD is nearly 4 so obviously still travelling on her baby passport.
Everyone's children ages - why do you think they give 5yr validity if you can't use it?

My daughter (now 5) got her 2nd passport in January this year. Her first passport she was 4 days old in the picture!!! We used it right until just before Xmas and her renewal
and no issues at all.
my son was slightly older (3 weeks) in his and same no issues at all!
Don’t worry about it any more

No my son had his first passport photo taken at about three weeks. At that age they don't even need their eyes to be open. He didn't look like the same baby even st six months, let alone when he was a toddler. No one questioned it.

Yeah, you're over thinking it. I think as long as you look like yours, your partner looks like his, your child has a surname to match one or both of you then 👍. We've just come back from a multi flight trip with our three year old -he's weeks old in his passport photo. Sometimes I had to hold him up, someone's they really didn't care.