We permanently live in Canada and our child is turning 14 soon. Do we need to apply for a Russian Internal passport?

A question that we receive very often is:

Do I need to have a Russian Internal passport if I permanently live in the United States or Canada?

The answer is, for Russian citizens permanently living abroad their Russian foreign travel passport is their main document of the Russian Federation which proves their identity.

In this case there is no need to apply for a Russian Internal passport. It is enough to have a valid Russian travel passport and to apply for a new travel passport in advance. We highly recommend to apply for this a few months before expiration, because the processing time is 3 or 4 months.

Russian citizens who do not have an Internal passport and their travel passport is expired will not be able to apply right away for a new travel passport. First, they must go through confirmation of citizenship, which takes a few months. Only after your citizenship is confirmed you will be eligible to apply for a new travel passport. This is the reason we recommend to apply for a new travel passport well before your current passport expires.