16 yo ds travelling to Portugal with family friend- letter?

[2025istheyeari]

Hi all

I’m hoping someone can help, after trying the Portuguese Consulate and EasyJet neither of whom have been very helpful!!!
as the title, my son is travelling with family friends to Portugal and I am meeting them a few days later. Friends have done this before and a letter of approval from parents has sufficed however the FCO website says this has to be notarised. The Portuguese one doesn’t and I’m now not sure what to do! Argh! The flights ended up costing a fortune for various reasons and the quote I’ve had for notarising is £175 which is rather not pay if it’s not necessary. Does anybody know what the situation is/ can suggest who might be able to give me a final answer/ know of notary services that are cheaper please? Thank you!

I have taken The DC's friends to Portugal and when they were under 16 we did need a letter but not since.
We just got a free template online and it was not notarised so cost nothing, Faro Border Control asked for a letter but were happy with what we had.
From memory it had parents names and passport numbers, my name, permission to travel to Portugal and have Parental responsibility between x and Y date and signed by the parents with a witness (neighbour)
Not need for anything else in my experience and we did it 4 times with DC aged 13-16 and then afterwards but weren't asked for a letter.

google "Get permission to take a child abroad" - it will take you to Gov.UK site.

Thanks so much both, your comments and the Google search confirm what I had hoped. Will do the send a copy of my passport in car they need to validate my signature and get the letter witnessed. Thanks so much.

At 16 they won't need it but it will do no harm to have it

They need it until 17 according to everything I’ve read! Not that it’s easy to decipher I have to be honest! I just can’t risk them all being kept back because he doesn’t have the right docs!

There was a thread about this recently. Ds17 went to Portugal on New years day with a friend 17. We did the letter plus photo copied passports but did not know about them being notarised so it was not neither was the friends. They were not asked for the letters but much better to have them than not for peace of mind.

I took a bunch of DS's 16 year old friends away last year - we just downloaded the letter, only one got asked (in the UK, when checking in).

We were not going to Portugal, though, so may be irrelevant.

My ds went to Portugal last Jan( age 17) to meet up with friends . He was stopped at the airport as he didn’t have a letter but we were able to email the airport with the relevant info and everything was ok . ( He had been to the states at 16 without a letter so we were surprised) .

Fab thanks all, we’ll do the letter but not get notarised/ that saves £175!! Thanks again. I feel much better about things!

Thats interesting as we had DD's friend (16) with us and DS's friend (13) with us and were only asked for one for the younger boy. At 16 they can fly alone (younger with some airlines) so I suppose he could have got through Border control alone if needed
But I don't think there is any harm in having one up until 18 even

could you please send the link for the travel consent form template, as I am travelling with friends to portugal this summer. Also did you include the adult who would be resposible for you whilst you were there?

We didn't use a template, the friends parents did but it included the following
Childs full name, dob and passport number
My full name and passport number
Parents full names and passport numbers
Dates of Travel
It just said that the child had parents permission to travel with me and I could assume parental responsibility between the dates of the trip