Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

I currently live in the US with hubby. He has a H1-b visa and I have a H4. We are going through green card process currently. I am due to have a baby in a couple of months. The child will have US citizenship. However, I will be moving to the UK with the baby, while hubby stays here and continues to work. I am a British citizen. The baby and I will be visiting regularly, splitting our time between the US and UK, for a year or two.

My question is that as our baby will have US citizenship (birth certificate etc), will he also be able to have UK citizenship? If so, how does this work? I guess our main concern is being able to get healthcare for him in the UK.

I'm sorry if this is really obvious to everyone. Being almost 7 months pregnant and going through a pretty major negative life event seems to have boggled my brain a little! I would really appreciate some info.

Thanks :)

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

Were you or your husband born or naturalised in the UK? If so, then your child will be British by descent and you can apply for a UK passport for the child.

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

Routine health care from the NHS will depend not on nationality, but on where you are living for tax purposes, which is where you spend the majority of the year. If that's the UK, you and baby are fine. If it's the US, you're not covered by the NHS except for emergencies.

Bev

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

I am a born citizen of the UK. The majority of my time will be spent in the UK (with 2 or 3 months out of the year here in the US with my husband).

What would be the procedure for getting our baby dual citizenship? I should point out that the baby will have US citizenship by birth and not through descent.

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-...tering-a-birth Try starting here, I registered my guys born in the US, so they have registration of birth abroad certificates. They look just like a british birth certificate.
Then I applied for UK passports for them. Some people don't bother with the registration certificate, but I wanted to be sure they have proof.
Also you can do the registration part only and collect the certificate for cheaper in UK but not right away, may a few months later I forget.

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

The baby will be British by descent from birth, there is no other procedure required to get it.

You can do the Consular birth registration as mentioned, but you don't need to. You can simply apply for a British passport, using Form C2 in the US.

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

Registering the birth at the consulate is a good idea. Don't need to bother with the passport or the certificate, you can get those cheaper in the UK.

You can visit the UK for 6 months on a US passport, but if you want to use the NHS, you need to show right of abode, so your long form birth cert and the kids should let the kid into the UK.

There are millions of threads almost weekly going over the pro/cons to bothering with getting a registered birth or not, so you wouldn't have to search much to find them.

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

If you go the GRO route of getting the certificate in the UK, it'll generally not be available till the September of the following year, but it is only a tenner, so saves a hundred odd bucks.

The big reason it's worth doing is that US birth certs can be amended to reflect adoptions, so US birth certs issued after 3 months may or may not be accepted as parental proof for getting a UK passport at a later date. The issue really depends on the state as some issue them with the date of registration and date of issue, while some states only state the date of issue, so there is no way to know if the birth cert has been amended or not. This generally isn't an issue in other countries, which is why some other countries do not have UK birth registrations at the UK consulate.

Re: Dual Citizenship for our baby US-UK
 

Thanks everyone for all the great advice. I have to say people on this forum are always really helpful! We will begin looking into the whole thing and figure something out.

Thanks again :):)