Permission to travel with 15 year old to Spain?

[Hs2Issue]

We are going to Spain later this year with our child and a school friend who is aged 15. I know i need to get a letter of permission/authority from their parents but am unsure if this also needs to be notarised too? Google and Spanish embassy website are not very helpful!

I would get it notarised, just to be on the safe side. Spanish border control can be sticklers for bureaucracy.

Wet weren’t bothered at all when leaving the country with my grandson but on our return into the country customs at Liverpool stopped us and I showed them the photocopy of my DDs. My DSIL and my DGS passport with a written statement on 1/4 of the page saying I had permission to take him abroad for a holiday and that I was his maternal grandmother and we were expected to be away from x and to return on x . They also invited both of their phone numbers in case anybody needed to get in touch for verification. They asked my DGS who I was I was and he said I was his nanny and that was it, they were more than happy to wave us through after the looked at something on the computer ( I imagine they checked his mum was the one who applied for his passport to verify etc). Took an extra 5 minutes but very efficient tbh.

Thank for replying - much appreciated! @GreenGodiva@Lovelybitofsquirrel

We often take my daughter’s best friend on holiday.

We take a letter written/signed by her parents and also a photocopy of the parents passports.

The first time we went we didn’t have the passport photocopies but they were requested. We got in but was told to have it next time.

This was Portugal.

@workingcockerthat's interesting i had heard Portugal it has to be notarised! I was planning to get copies of parents passports, her birth certicate and add her to our travel insurance policy.

Is this a new requirement, my daughter went on holiday with a friends family to spain when she was 13 yrs old 10 yrs ago and nothing was required .
I took this families daughter with us on holiday when she was 16 yrs old and didnt take any documentation.
Is this a new thing?

Many years ago I used to frequently travel with my kids and niece.
only the way back of one trip, she was asked at stansted ‘who is this woman to you’ , she replied that she had no clue!!
apparently the kids had been planning this for days.
Not funny and were very fortunate to have a customs officer with a sense of humour.
TBH at that point I’d have been happy if they had taken all the children away 😂

I’m interested in how this applies for a 17 year old (young in the school year) going away after exams with friends. My understanding is that one of the 18 year olds has to have parental responsibility for the 17 year old. I can’t work out if I’m comfortable with this or not. 30 years ago this wasn’t needed for my group of friends doing the same thing!

My daughter went away post A levels to Portugal with 2 friends- she was 18 and they were still 17. She had letters which were notarised from both parents and they were asked for at the border control in the way home.

I would get it all properly sorted. I've traveled with my OWN children and have been stopped at boarder security (me and my partner, their dad, aren't married so different surnames) and it was a total hassle, my kids were hysterical and the only reason we were let back into the UK was because the man said that my child looked identical to me but next time they wouldn't be so forgiving so remember a letter signed from their father and their birth certificates and a copy of their father's passport... This was coming back from Turkey to the UK.

Your kids were hysterical at the uk border coming home? That’s probably why they thought something was up, massive overreaction to being asked “who is this lady” 🤣

We got properly questioned at the ferry port to France both ways. Bog standard family all with same name. We have teen girls though. They made us step away and asked the girls if we were their parents. I think it’s good actually I’d rather be inconvenienced if it meant a trafficked teen was saved.

Why were your kids hysterical?! Ours were slightly bemused.

We've taken children's friends on holiday a number of times and never taken anything with us, never been asked either. The last time was about 10 years ago so dont know if the rules have changed 🤔 Surely there are many many families with different names on their passports these days?

Don't worry too much about it. Spanish immigration are not twitching to catch teenagers who are being kidnapped by two adults, without the police being alerted and yet look like they are happily off on a family holiday. And there is no outgoing passport control at the UK end.

Note that this is a completely different situation to a lone parent taking a child out of the country, where there is a reasonable chance of the other parent objecting even if the child doesn't. I think that several PP may be confusing those two sets of circumstances.

At many Spanish airports you will do your EES biometrics at a kiosk and then go to an e-gate, without a human looking at your passport at all. In the unlikely event that an officer wants to check, they will ask the girl and she will say "This is my best friend X and her parents", and the officer will immediately see that this is true. That might also get asked on returning to the UK.

As backup a simple letter from the friend's parents, signed by both and with their phone number, will be fine. And the main use of that will be if you have to act in loco parentis of the girl, for example if she falls ill and you need to consent to emergency surgery. Get that put in the letter ("We authorise Mr and Mrs Hs2Issue to act as..."). I actually wrote a draft of such a letter in a reply to a similar question in here some time ago: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/5100696-ds-17-flying-to-spain-solo-to-stay-with-his-friend-family-parental-permission-wuestion?reply=136192599