How to get a DSWD Travel Clearance for Minors who are traveling without their parents

 

So you decided to travel and bring your nephew/niece/godchild with you. You ask for their parents' consent, they say yes, you book a flight and accommodation, arrange all the tours, you leave, and have a vacation. Sounds so easy, right?

But not so fast. You need a travel clearance for the minor if they're not your offspring or you are traveling without the parents.

Here's a step by step guide on how to get a DSWD Travel Clearance for minors.

A DSWD Travel Clearance for minors is a required document for minors who are traveling outside the country WITHOUT THEIR PARENTS in the following circumstances:

- traveling with relatives

- traveling solo to meet adoptive parents in another country

- traveling solo or with relatives to meet the parents living outside the country

- traveling to study abroad

- traveling to seek medical help abroad

In our case, we brought our nephew with us to Singapore for a vacation. His mom did not come with us and he has an absentee father.

Now here's the step by step on how to obtain the clearance:

1. PREPARE ALL YOUR TRAVEL DOCUMENTS

- Obtaining consent from the child's parents is obviously the very first step so definitely, you need to get that out of the way.

Now this is the first step in processing the documents. Prepare all your travel documents: airline tickets, itinerary, and accommodation. DSWD will be needing these details to process the blue card, which is the clearance.

2. CALL DSWD AND ASK FOR THEIR REQUIREMENTS

- Bringing minors outside the country may be rooted in different reasons and situations: in our case, we wanted to bring our nephew to a vacation without his mom while there are other instances wherein the parents are living abroad or are OFWs and their children are living in the Philippines, and will be accompanied by a relative to meet the parents outside the country for a vacation or other reasons. 

That said, DSWD may require different forms and requirements depending on your case (we have not personally asked if this is the case, but it's always best to anticipate these things to avoid delay) so it's best to call DSWD and inform them of your situation so they can give you the proper list of requirements that you need to accomplish.

3. DOWNLOAD THE DSWD TRAVEL CLEARANCE APPLICATION FORM

- Here is the download link to the travel form that we have to fill up: DSWD TRAVEL CLEARANCE FOR MINORS

3. PREPARE THE DOCUMENTS OF THE MINOR AND THE PARENT/S

- In our case, we were asked to prepare the following for our nephew:

A. Latest birth certificate (order from PSA help line) ORDER HERE

B. 2 passport- sized photos of the minor, taken not beyond 6 months

C. Photocopy of passport

For his mother, we had to prepare the following documents:

A. Certificate of Marriage or CENOMAR if not married. ORDER HERE.

B. Affidavit of Consent and Support (this letter will detail that the parent/s are allowing the minor to travel without them and the type of financial support that the minor will have to support themselves during the trip. This affidavit must be notarized and Notary Public offices can make this letter and notarize it for you so I advise that you just avail the service)

C. One valid ID of the parent/s

D. Photocopy of 2 valid IDs with specimen signature

WHAT IF I'M A SINGLE PARENT AND I CAN'T OBTAIN THE PERMISSION AND DOCUMENTS OF THE MINOR'S MOTHER/FATHER?

- if the other parent is an absentee and if there's only one registered parent in the child's birth certificate, no need to obtain the permission of the other parent. Bottomline, I think DSWD only wants all the information in the required documents to be consistent.

For deceased parents, you will need to produce a death certificate.

However, if you are not in good terms with the other parent and they're still living and their name is registered in the birth certificate of the child, you will still need to obtain their consent. If talking with them is complicated and not possible, then please seek advice from DSWD.

4. BRING ALL YOUR REQUIREMENTS TO DSWD

- The final step is you have to bring all your requirements to DSWD's office in Manila. Be sure to bring the following:

Accomplished DSWD travel clearance for minors form

Photocopy of minor's birth certificate

Photocopy of parent/s' cenomar or certificate of marriage

Photocopy of minor and parent/s' passports

Notarized affidavit of consent and support

2 passport ID photos of the minor

Processing time is around 2 hours. There weren't a lot of people before us, but expect the wait time to be longer during vacation months.

The entire process of obtaining the clearance took us two weeks. Best to always do it three weeks to a month in advance before your trip to avoid grave delays.

You have the option to choose the validity of the travel clearance. In our case, we chose the maximum which is 3 years; so in the next three years, the clearance will still be valid, but we just have to update DSWD on our latest travel destination, dates, and itinerary, but we don't have to go through the same process again.

And my final tip is don't attempt to bypass this requirement and brazenly think that you can get away with it since the minor is close to you anyway and you have no any ill intentions of bringing them outside the country without their parents; that's not an excuse to disobey the law. If you attempt to travel under this circumstance without the proper clearance, chances are, the immigration will not allow you to travel and might be slapped with fines to boot.

That's it! I hope you find this useful. In the next TBJ Travels post (finally!), let's go to Singapore!