how often are you required to change a childs passport?
 

i got my son his first when he was 1 when is the next time i need to do it

US Passports for under 16 (or 17, don't remember exactly) are good for 5 years.
There should be an expiration date on it, regardless of where it's from.

We recently renewed our 5 yr-old's passport. She didn't look much like her 6-week-old picture anymore.

validity
 

don't forget that most countries require a passport to be valid for more than six months.

fajimenez,

and which exact countries are those. Last time the timeatic (or timetronic, or whatever its called) stats were listed on FT, very few "civilized countries had this actual regulation, many were three months and many have an agreement to in fact recognize PP's six months PAST their exp. date.

It seems like it is for those countries that require a visa, in order to get the visa, you have to have six months validity left on your passport.

India, Brazil, Colombia (to start) is what i found according to their USA embassies.

It is true that they will honor the agreement you reference, but I am not sure what you mean by

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hfly

"civilized countries"

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so you'll have to clarify that for me.

What I mean is that in certain places you can find yourself in a small room being shaken down and threatened. As for Brazil, they'll give you a five year visa which can go past the expiration date of your visa by years, which retains its validity until the visa is done. My last Brazil visa was issued with a little more than 3 months left on my PP and is still valid (have used it three times recently).

Passport for Children
 

In case you haven't already, here's a direct link to what seems to be a pretty comprehensive guide to getting passport for your children (under 14).

http://travel.state.gov/passport/get_minors.html

I almost forgot, I gotta do them for my boys too.

We are taking a trip in a week or so. My now almost 3-year old's passport has a photo from when she was not even 4 months old. I just did a couple of double takes between her passport photo and her standing in front of me, and for the life of me, I see no resemblance. And that passport is good for another 2+ years! I am sure passport control officers are trained in things like these... Has anyone had issues with outdated kids' passport photos? Thankfully she is old enough to confirm when asked if her name is "so and so", which is something we often saw her elder brother being asked.

We never had a problem with that. My kid's first passport photo was taken at 3 months, we used that passport for international travel until it expired.

I think when people say "civilized countries" in this context, they just mean "countries I want to visit."
I personally wouldn't put too much of a social or political interpretation on it without a lot more evidence that it was meant that way.

If any family would have issues with this kind of thing, it would have been my relatives. But it's most commonly not a problem.

If you're worried about the issue, then having a collection of photos showing the child's age progression should be more than sufficient. I suggest keeping those kind of things around somewhere anyway, even if it's not for taking along during a trip. Digital photos showing child's age progression is fine too for this kind of thing, in the very rare chance it comes up.

Passport control authorities may be no better at manually face matching real people against a photo than a young child; but they still don't commonly make a fuss about this kind of thing when the names and appearances of the family members don't give them concern about unlawful child trafficking.

The concern you have -- and concerns that arise from that kind of issue you mention -- is why some countries have shrunk down the printed passport validity period for children's passports. For example, Sweden until a few years ago used to issue children's passports that were valid for 5 years. Now for young children, they only issue them with a 3 year validity period. US children's passports are valid ordinarily for 5 years and that's been standard for a long, long time.

the passports for our kids show a picture when they were 6 weeks old. Just changed them at 4.5 years old so as to respect the 6 months validity when travelling.Didn't have any issue.

My first kid had her picture taken at 10 days (not easy) and travelled at 2 weeks (easy). That passport is a keeper.

5 yrs later, rinse, repeat.

Some comparators
Child #1 - Passport photo taken at 28 days old. Valid for 5 years for both US and SA.
Child #2 - Passport photo taken at 14 days old. Valid for 5 years for both US and SA.

At about 2-3 years old, we got them both Global Entry. At enrollment, the Officer who rolled their prints was not confident that, at the GE kiosk, our (e.g. me and kids' mom) use livescan pad would work to get a good match. Never had a problem. Have also had to lift them up off ground to get a camera view of them on the GE kiosk. Made for some interested "half-photos" that the CBP staff often chuckled at us for at least making the effort.

US
Under 16 get passport that only lasts five years
https://travel.state.gov/content/tra.../under-16.html

16 years and older get passport valid for ten years
https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...ort/16-17.html