CPW

If you want to travel abroad - there's no legal requirement for Australian citizens to have a passport.

In any case, I should have thought that the PR visa becomes technically invalid the moment you become an Australian citizen, so it couldn't be used for travel in and out of Australia, whether or not the expiry date had passed.

worzel

So what happens when your British passport expires? Can you renew it by post or do you lose it at that point?

CPW

It's not a problem. You simply renew your British passport in the ordinary way that you would have if you hadn't become an Australian citizen/got an Australian passport. Your status as an Australian citizen or an Australian passport holder has no bearing on your British citizenship or your right to have a British passport.

Daffy

I looked that one up as my husband needs to renew his British Passport. You have to fill in form C1 'Application for UK Passport' and send it off to the British High Commission in Canberra (www.britaus.net). A 32 page standard size passport costs $147.00 + $11 return courier fee.

MarkMyWords

As opposed to £42 (about $105) if you do it in the UK. That's one hell of a markup!

JAJ

They add on a consular fee to cover the costs of running British missions overseas. Some countries adopt the practise of charging more for passports issued overseas, others do not.

If you're an Australian citizen and only going to be visiting the UK in future then you can just get an Australian passport and not bother with a UK one. That said, keeping a valid UK passport may be very useful when you need to get through immigration quickly, like when you have a connecting flight to catch.

Jeremy

MarkMyWords

Oh I wasn't saying they can't justify it; I just meant that if it were feasible, it would be cheaper to get your passport renewed from a UK address, e.g. if you were there for a while.
That's potentially very dodgy. The original ticket will have been issued for a particular passport and I suspect you will get hauled summarily off for a nice chat with Customs if you try to switch passports mid-journey.

bondipom

Mrs BP has switched passports mid journey without issue every time we have been to Europe. There is nothing dodgy or out of the ordinary doing so and it is common practise.

Pollyana

You don;t have to produce your passport when buying your ticket, therefore you can use whichever you like. I know people who leave Oz on an Australian one, and enter the UK on their British one, then use it for connecting flights. Perfectly acceptable

CPW

Not at all. It's perfectly legitimate to 'switch' passports. I routinely use my Australian passport to enter Australia (as the Australian authorities require) and my British passport to enter the UK.

Indeed, some people with two nationalities would be required to switch - e.g. an Australian-US dual national would be required by each country to use that country's passport to enter the country. And if I were travelling from Australia to the UK and planned to stay in the UK for more than six months or was making anything other than a tourist or business trip, I would have to use my British passport to enter the UK (or else get a right of abode certificate in my Australian passport).

MarkMyWords

Hmmm, ok, I bow to experience. Still seems potentially confusing to those poor people who try to keep track of people's movements (legitimate or otherwise) around the world.

I suppose I was thinking mostly of the paperless low-cost European flights where the only thing you've got is your passport. Mind you, those are all direct flights, I expect.

bondipom

You can show the airline both passports, one connected with the booking details on and one which will pass you through immigration. A person with dual citizenship (one of which is Australian)is not supposed to use a non-australian passport to enter or leave Australia. To get on a plane to Oz the airline is supposed to check for a valid visa or Ausralian passport.

Those poor people tracking movements should improve their computer systems rather than interrupt our lives.