C&V

My husband and I emigrated from the UK on a PR 136 visa in Oct 2004 and now find ourselves eligible to apply for Australian Citizenship! yay! We are both keen to apply as soon as possible so we can enjoy the benefits of dual citizenship. However, I'm due to give birth to our first child in April 07 and not sure if we should apply before or after the birth.

I spoke to someone the other day who said that we should check that if we become dual citizens before the birth, our child (who would be Australian) may not be able to apply for a British Citizenship/ passport.

Does anyone know if this is true?

We would rather not wait to apply for our citizenship as in January they may change the legislation to 3 or 4 years residency in Australia.

thanks
C&V

biggy

as far as i am aware if you guys were born in UK then ur child should be eligible for UK citizenship

moneypenny20

If you guys are British citizens, I am sure that any child, wherever they are born are able to get British citizenship also. I know JAJ has posted about this in the past and there have been some problems for some people but I can't for the life of me remember what they are - will have a search.

No, you'll be fine, was thinking of something else completely.

If you have children born in Australia they should be Australian by birth and British by descent.

JAJ

Absolute rubbish. It won't make any difference to your child's status. If you're eligible and keen to apply for Australian citizenship, then go ahead.

JAJ

The main problems can arise if the British parents themselves got their British citizenship "by descent" from a parent born or naturalised in the UK.

Remember - British citizenship only passes (normally) to the *first* generation born outside the UK. There are special provisions for the second generation in certain circumstances, but the "one generation" rule has been in place since 1915.

The other complication that can arise (for children born before 1 July 2006) is that a father needs to be married in order to pass on British citizenship automatically. However this can be resolved by registering the child as British before age 18.

CadburysFingers

Your son has dual nationality, because a. he has been born to UK parents, and b. he has been born in a different country to parents on a permanent visa, different story if its not permanent.

Our son, born 15 months ago, has an Australian passie, we havent bothered to get him his UK one, as we dont really see the point, but the option is there for the future.

JAJ

A British parent is not enough in itself - see my post #5

It would be a different story in other countries too. Many countries require the parents to be citizens, not just residents.


It's advisable to get him an Australian citizenship cert too, to make it easier to renew his passport in future. Otherwise there might be a delay (especially in 10-15 years) as they try to look back to check your immigration status when he was born.

Form 119 and a fee of AUD55, processing time of a few weeks normally.


Are you sure he's British then?

CadburysFingers

You make a good point there, and its definitely something we have talked about a lot. I guess because we are British, we see our son as British, but we intend to live here for the rest of our lives, so I guess he will feel Australian. I dont really care one way or the other, so long as hes happy, but its good thinking material, I admit.

Thanks for the reimnder, we have been 'getting round to that' ever since he was born, will get it done this week.

Deer Hunter

I don't think that's the point JAJ is making. You should seriously look into whether or not your son is British (eligible for citizenship) and get him a passport so that in future he has the option to live there if he wants to!

JAJ

He will feel Australian either way if he grows up in Australia. But that's not to say he won't find a British passport useful when he's older.

The point I'm trying to make is that there have been cases where the parents thought their child was British when it was not. And only found out the truth too late to solve the problem.

There are similar stories about Australian parents overseas making similar assumptions regarding their children and then missing time limits.

The bottom line is that you cannot assume your child is British until he has been issued his own British citizen passport.