Chirpy
Travel8 min

Travel documents checklist: one column per person

You checked your passport and the boarding passes are on your phone. At the desk, the four-year-old's passport ran out in March. Every checklist is written for one traveller.

2 October 2026

You checked your passport. You have the boarding passes on your phone. At the check-in desk it turns out the four-year-old’s passport ran out in March.

Every travel documents checklist on the first page of results is written for one traveller. Passport, visa, insurance, tickets, tick, tick, tick. A family is not one traveller four times over, and the person running the checklist almost always runs it on themselves.

So this one is built in columns. One per person.

The travel documents checklist, person by person

Here is the whole list. Read it once for each person going, and fill in the last column before you book, not before you fly.

DocumentWho needs oneThe thing to check
PassportEvery traveller on an international trip, children includedThe destination’s own validity rule, which can ask for months beyond your return date
Visa or entry authorisationDepends on the passport and the destination, per personApply for each person, even the baby
ID for a domestic flightIn the US, passengers 18 and overREAL ID compliant, or a passport instead
Consent letterA child travelling without one or both parentsSigned original, by each parent not going
Travel insuranceEveryone, on one policy or severalThat every name is on it, and the emergency number
Booking referencesAt least two adultsThat the person who did not book can find them
Driving licenceWhoever is driving the hire carIn date, and whether the country also wants an international permit

Nothing in that table is surprising. What goes wrong is the direction you read it in. One person reads it down their own column, finds everything in order, and calls the family done.

A travel documents checklist for a family of four, drawn as a grid with one column per person: you, who booked the trip, your partner, Maya who is nine and Leo who is four. Five rows. Passport valid for the trip: valid for you, your partner and Maya, but Leo's expired in March. Entry authorisation such as the UK's ETA, which GOV.UK says every traveller needs including babies and children: approved for both adults, never applied for either child. ID for a US domestic flight, which TSA requires only from passengers 18 and over: you have a REAL ID, your partner has an old licence, and the children need none. Travel insurance names all four. Booking references: in your inbox, and your partner has none. Five gaps, and none of them is in the column of the person who booked, which is the only column a one-person checklist checks. GOV.UK and TSA checked 2 October 2026.ONE TRIP, FOUR TRAVELLERS, FIVE DOCUMENTSCheck the column, not just the row. Where are the gaps?You (booked it)PartnerMaya, 9Leo, 4Passport, valid for the trip✓ Valid✓ Valid✓ Valid✗ Expired in MarchEntry authorisation, e.g. UK ETA✓ Approved✓ Approved✗ Never applied✗ Never appliedID for a US domestic flight✓ REAL ID✗ Old licenceUnder 18Under 18Travel insurance names them✓ Named✓ Named✓ Named✓ NamedBooking references to hand✓ In your inbox✗ Has noneNot neededNot neededFive gaps. None of them is in the column of the person who booked.A checklist one person runs on themselves checks one column out of four.ETA: GOV.UK, every traveller including babies and children. Flight ID: TSA, 18 and over. Both checked 2 October 2026.

That family has five gaps and a parent who would honestly tell you they had checked the documents. They had. They checked theirs.

Every passport in one place, flagged before you book

The fix is to make each person’s documents visible to everyone, with the dates doing the checking. In Chirpy, you add each passport to the Vault once: whose it is, the number and the expiry date. Attach a photo of the photo page if you like, and it is stored in your household’s own Google Drive.

Then open Travel to start the trip. Above the trip, under “From your Vault”, are all four passports and any visas you have filed, each with how long it has left. Leo’s is the one with the warning mark. You see it on the night you are choosing flights, not at the desk.

Anything inside three months is flagged in the Vault, anything inside a month gets the warning mark, and the expiry sits on the shared calendar. Everyone in the household gets reminded a month out, a week out, the evening before and on the day. Chirpy Basic does all of that free, for up to six people, no card.

A checklist one person runs on themselves checks one column out of four.

Children need their own of almost everything

This is where the gaps cluster, because a child’s documents are nobody’s own. Three rules, each checked today on the government’s own site.

  • Entry authorisations are per head. The UK’s ETA page on GOV.UK says each person travelling needs one, “including babies and children”. If you applied for yourself on your phone, you have not applied for them.
  • Domestic flights are the exception. TSA asks for ID from adults 18 and over, and does not require it from children travelling within the United States.
  • One parent travelling means a letter. Canada’s government recommends a signed consent letter for any child going abroad without one or both parents. It is not law there, but immigration officers and airline staff may ask for it, and the page strongly recommends a notary witnesses the signature.

Children’s passports also tend to expire on a different cycle from their parents’, so the family’s documents drift out of step. Filing every one in the Vault is what keeps them in a single view, and if the paper versions are scattered, our guide on how to scan important documents to phone gets them all in one sitting.

Originals, copies, and what a phone photo is for

The US border agency puts it in four words on its own travel page: “Carry - do not pack” your travel documents. Originals in the bag that stays with you, every time.

One honest limit, then. A photo of a passport in Chirpy, or anywhere, will not get anybody through a border, and Canada’s page warns that officials may not accept a photocopy or digital version of a consent letter either. What Chirpy gives you is everything around the original: whose it is, when it expires, the number and the photo page if it goes missing, and a second adult who can find all of it without ringing you.

That last part matters most on the day. The person carrying the documents is often the one queuing with a toddler while the other is returning the hire car.

Domestic flights: the ID that changed in 2025

A domestic trip feels exempt from all this. It is not, quite. Since 7 May 2025, TSA no longer accepts state driving licences or ID cards that are not REAL ID compliant. A passport or passport card still works, as do several other IDs on TSA’s list.

Since 1 February 2026, an adult who turns up without acceptable ID can pay $45 to use TSA ConfirmID to verify who they are before screening. That is TSA’s own page, checked 2 October 2026, and it is $45 per adult you could have spent on dinner.

Licences are easy to forget because nobody thinks of them as travel documents. File each driver’s licence in the Vault next to the passports, with its expiry, and the old one without the star is sitting in the same list the night you check.

The booking references are documents too

Airlines, hotels and car hire companies want a reference, and the reference lives in one inbox. This is the classic family failure: the adult who booked has everything, and the other one has a vague memory of the hotel name.

In Chirpy’s Travel tool the trip holds its flights, stays, car and activities underneath it, each with its confirmation number, dates, provider and cost. On Basic you type them in. Plus, when it opens, will read a photo or a PDF of the confirmation and fill them in for you. Either way the trip sits on the shared calendar, and the partner in the diagram above has every reference on their own phone. Our guide to family travel planning organiser apps covers the rest of the trip that an itinerary leaves out.

When to run the checklist: three dates

  1. Before you book. Every passport against the destination’s own rule, and every entry authorisation applied for, per person. This is the check that saves money.
  2. A week before. The consent letter signed, the insurance names checked, the references on both adults’ phones. Make a list in Chirpy called “Travel documents” with one line per person per document, and either of you can tick it off. It sits next to the clothes on your family packing list app.
  3. The night before. Originals into the one bag that travels with you. Count passports against people out loud.

The household facts the sitter needs while you are away belong somewhere separate and permanent; our page on important household information one place covers what to write down for them.

Common questions

What should be on a travel documents checklist?+
For each traveller: a passport valid for the trip, any entry authorisation or visa the destination asks for, ID for domestic flights, proof of insurance and the booking references. Add a signed consent letter for a child travelling without one parent. Check it once per person, not once per trip. In Chirpy each passport sits in the shared Vault with its expiry date, free on Basic.
Do children need their own travel documents?+
Yes, for almost everything that crosses a border. GOV.UK says every traveller to the UK needs an ETA, including babies and children, and children need their own passport. The exception is US domestic flights: TSA does not ask under-18s for ID. Both checked 2 October 2026.
Do I need a consent letter if my child travels with one parent?+
Strongly advisable, and often asked for even where it is not law. Canada’s government recommends a signed letter whenever a child travels abroad without one or both parents, signed by each parent who is not going, ideally in front of a notary. Carry the original: its page says officials may not accept copies. Checked 2 October 2026.
Is a photo of my passport on my phone enough?+
No. A photo is a backup, and the border wants the original. What the copy gives you is the number, the dates and the page when the passport is lost or buried in a bag. Keep it where the other adult can open it too, like Chirpy’s shared Vault, not in one camera roll.