Lucas_Dad

Hi. Obviously I'll go off to Google and find out exactly what I need to do to renew UK passports over here in Oz, but I was just wondering if anyone had any red hot tips & tricks for ensuring it all goes through quickly and painlessly.

Also, my 5yo has both UK & Oz passports (he was born in UK) that need renewing, but my 2yo doesn't have a passport yet - he was born over here and we haven't applied for UK citizenship for him yet. Thoughts? Worth the effort or just get him an Oz passport?

Cheers

Beoz

Get everyone both without hesitation. Rules can change and change quick.

Also avoid questions at Heathrow like "why have you one child entering as a tourist - you can't leave him here - he can't stay here with you either" ..... been there done that.

old.sparkles

Assuming you are British, other than by descent, then your 2yo is already a British Citizen and you just need to apply for their passport. That application will probably take the longest, so I would think you would want to get the Australian passport first.

Lucas_Dad

I'm 100% Essex. Not sure that qualifies as British but that's what it says on my passport

Lucas_Dad

Trying to research the 2yo's situation on gov.uk. Am finding it confusing. I'm full blood British, my dad was British, I'm descended from my dad (and mum, of course), so that's means I'm Brit by descent or not?

Therefore my 2yo (who has Oz birth certificate), being descended from me, is Brit by descent or not? My wife is Ozish. When we got Oz passport for the 5yo we were in UK, and had to get Aus citizenship certificate first. GOV.UK doesn't mention this at all.. Am going over the guidance notes etc and it's not clear to me. Going to have to give them a call I think.

Pollyana

Pollyana

Australia and the UK have different requirements. Your baby doesn't need a UK citizenship certificate.

See https://www.gov.uk/government/upload..._44_03.17_.pdf - Table of supporting documents and

Baby's first UK Passport, what you need to know.

NickyC

If you were born in Britain to parents who were British, then you are classed as British otherwise than by descent. That means you can pass your British citizenship on to any children you have who are born overseas. i.e. your baby born in Australia.

Your baby born in Australia has a different class of British citizenship to you. He is classed as British by descent and he will not be able to automatically pass British citizenship onto any of HIS children who are not born in Britain. Unlike your 5 year-old, who will.

Lucas_Dad

That's great, thanks. I'd found a similar guidance booklet, titled as per your link plus 'from outside of the UK'. I'll read them in conjunction. The 'baby's first passport' is handy too. Cheers

Lucas_Dad

AH. Got it. Perfect explanation. Thanks. Why can't the gov.uk bods put it that simply on their websites?!

moneypenny20

It's very easy. My eldest did hers the other month, got the passport back in a couple of weeks. Must get around to getting the others done whilst we have the money available.

Lucas_Dad

Thanksh Mish Moneypenny . Fingers crossed all easy for us too. I'm a full time dad = income $0 (but $1,000,000 job satisfaction) but wife looks set for a tax refund this year so hoping we can afford to get ourselves all sorted too.

How did you get yours back so quickly? I'm reading that we still have to post stuff back to UK, which takes a couple of weeks itself, plus processing, plus return postage time..?

moneypenny20

Sorry a couple of weeks from notification of application's arrival at wherever it is they go. So processing and return was two weeks. But from memory it took less than a week to get there.