You are actually asking two different questions
When a parent calls about this, the question usually arrives as one sentence: can he take them out of the country without my permission. But there are two questions inside it, and they have different answers.
One is whether he can get a passport for your child. The other is whether he can take your child out of the country. People assume the first controls the second. Often it does. Sometimes — and a cruise is the classic example — it does not.
The passport question has a clear federal answer
For a child under 16, a U.S. passport application requires both parents. Both must appear in person with the child, or the parent who cannot appear must sign a notarized Statement of Consent, State Department Form DS-3053, which has to be submitted within 90 days of notarization along with a copy of that parent’s photo ID.
The exception is a parent with sole legal custody, who can apply alone with a court order or a birth certificate naming only one parent.
So for most Texas families with a joint conservatorship order, the practical answer is no — he cannot get a passport for a child under 16 without your signature, unless a court order specifically gives him that authority on his own. The rules are different, and less protective, once a child turns 16, which is worth asking about specifically if your child is that age.
The one thing every parent in this situation should do, and almost nobody knows about
The State Department runs a free program called the Children’s Passport Issuance Alert Program. You enroll your child, and if anyone applies for a U.S. passport for that child, you are notified.
It costs nothing. It does not require a court order or a pending case. If your actual worry is that a passport gets issued without your knowledge, this is the single most effective thing you can do about it, and it takes one form.
But a passport is not always required — which is why the cruise question is different
Here is the part that surprises people. On a closed-loop cruise — one that departs from a U.S. port and returns to that same U.S. port — U.S. citizens can generally re-enter the country on a birth certificate and a government-issued photo ID rather than a passport. And Customs and Border Protection’s rule for children is looser still: U.S. citizen children 16 and under can enter with proof of citizenship alone, meaning a birth certificate.
So “he cannot get a passport without me” does not automatically mean “he cannot take the children on the cruise.” If he has a copy of the birth certificate and the itinerary is closed-loop, the passport may never come up.
Three caveats worth knowing before anyone relies on that:
- Cruise lines set their own rules, and many require a passport regardless of what the federal minimum allows.
- Not every itinerary qualifies. A cruise that starts in one country and ends in another, or that calls at a port with its own entry requirements, is a different situation.
- If something goes wrong and a passenger needs to fly home from a foreign port, that flight requires a passport. This is the reason experienced travelers get one anyway.
What your order probably says, and what it probably does not
Two things get confused constantly here.
A geographic restriction limits where the child’s primary residence can be — typically a county and contiguous counties. It governs where the child lives. It is not a travel restriction, and it does not stop a vacation.
And most standard Texas orders say nothing at all about international travel. If yours is silent, there is generally nothing in it prohibiting a trip during that parent’s own possession time. Parents are often shocked by this, but the order simply does not address it unless someone asked the court to address it.
Read your order before you read anything else. What it says — or does not say — is the beginning of the answer.
When a Texas court will actually restrict international travel
Texas law does not leave this unaddressed. Under Chapter 153 of the Family Code, when there is evidence of a potential risk of international abduction, the court is required to consider whether protective measures are needed. If it finds a credible risk, the tools available are substantial:
- Prohibiting removal of the child from Texas or the United States.
- Requiring surrender of the child’s passport, and prohibiting a new application for one.
- Requiring the parent to notify the State Department’s Office of Children’s Issues and any relevant foreign consulate or embassy of the restriction.
- Requiring a bond or security deposit sufficient to offset the cost of recovering the child.
- Authorizing law enforcement to take measures to prevent an abduction.
- Supervised visitation, and orders restraining the parent from removing the child from school or daycare.
The thing to understand about that list is what triggers it. A court applies these measures on evidence of risk — ties to another country, a lack of meaningful reason to return, prior threats or attempts, steps already taken to relocate assets or obtain foreign documents. Not on the fact that you do not trust him. That distinction is the whole case, and it is the same evidence-over-label principle that governs proving difficult behavior in a custody case.
The question to ask before you agree to any international trip
Ask whether the destination is a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
If a child is not returned from a Hague country, there is a treaty framework and a defined process for seeking return. If a child is not returned from a country that is not a party, your options narrow dramatically and get far more expensive. This one fact should carry more weight in your decision than almost anything else, and most parents never think to ask it.
If you are the parent who wants to take the trip
Make it easy to say yes. Ask early and in writing, well before anything is booked. Provide the itinerary, where you will be staying, and how you can be reached. Offer a notarized consent letter in both directions so the same courtesy runs back to the other parent for their travel. Carry a copy of your order and the consent letter with you.
A parent who asks in November for a March trip, with details, usually gets a yes. A parent who announces a booked trip two weeks out usually gets a hearing.
If you are the parent being asked
Separate two things that feel identical and are not: I do not want this, and this is a genuine risk.
Most of these requests are a vacation. A cruise out of Galveston with the grandparents is not a flight risk, and refusing it on principle tends to cost you more — in goodwill, in legal fees, and sometimes in how a judge sees you — than the trip ever would have.
If there is a real risk, that is a different conversation and the law has real tools for it. In a genuinely high-conflict case, those tools matter. If there is not, use the request. Trade your consent for the specifics you actually want: the full itinerary, contact information, agreed call times with the children, and a written agreement about the return date.
If you are not sure which situation you are in
That is the useful question, and it is usually answerable in one conversation. Bring your order and whatever the other parent has actually said or written about the trip. Our custody attorneys can tell you quickly which side of the line your situation falls on. Consultations are free. Call (972) 772-8005.
Part of Answers on Texas Divorce and Custody — everything we have written, free to read and sorted by what you are trying to work out. This one is filed under Children and Custody.
