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Background: Recurrent headaches in children are a cause of concern. Although information about this is available from the West there is meager data from the developing world. Objective: To study the clinical profile of children and adolescents with recurrent headaches and to classify them according to the revised International Headache Criteria 2004. Methods: A prospective study on 105 children with recurrent headaches was conducted in the Outpatient Department at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India over a period of 1 year. Patients were examined clinically, investigated and classified. Results: The mean age was 10.3±2.1 years and 52.4% were boys and mean duration of headache prior to enrollment was 17.8±17.5 months (range 4-96 months). Three fourths of them had less than 10 attacks per month. One third had unilateral headache, mainly adolescents. Three fourths could describe the nature and pulsatile was the commonest. Family history of headache was present in 57.1%, mostly mothers. Neuroimaging performed in 50 children revealed abnormalities in only 2%. Majority of cases had primary headaches (98%) of which 69.7% had migraine without aura, 8% had migraine with aura, 8% had probable migraine, 10.5% had episodic tension type headache and 3.8% had chronic tension headache. A quarter of them suffered from other pains also. Headaches led onto school absenteeism in 15% leading onto poor scholastic performance. Conclusion: Clinical and investigative profile of children with recurrent headaches from the developing world is similar to those from the West showing that they are mainly primary in nature and neuroimaging yield is low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]