Dekan1s3

Hi

I plan to marry my USA fiancé and then apply for a spouse visa. My fiancé is pregnant and due soon after we are married so our daughter will be an American citizen. As we will all be settling in the UK what is the best course of action for the baby to travel and settle in the UK. We can apply for an American passport ( allowing her to depart the US) ,I can register the birth with the UK authorities at which point I assume she will have a British Registration Certificate, would this mean our daughter has the right to settle in the UK or do we need a family child visa too? ( would there be any benefit in applying for a UK passport?)

I’m using the VAF4A form as a guide to the online spouse application to pre-empt the questions & it asks ‘do you have any children’ if yes we need to add in our daughters dob, place country etc so if we were to put the application in ( between the marriage and prior to the birth) we would enter ‘no’. It then asks if there will be any children travelling with you. We could select ‘no’ and our daughter could travel with me (the father) . If this is the case my daughter will have an American passport and I’ll have a British passport presumably causing suspicion at border control. Would it be better to apply for the spouse visa after the birth and declare our daughter in the application. I’m trying to find the correct and fastest way for us all to settle in the UK .
Kind Regards
Dekan

christmasoompa

Assuming your daughter will be a UK citizen at birth, you can't apply for a visa for her anyway, as she wouldn't be eligible. So yes, a British passport is what you'll apply for.

HTH.

Dekan1s3

Hi

Thank you , so to confirm what is needed to enter the UK.
Once the baby is born in the US ( she will be automatically gain British citizenship through decent from me as I was born in the UK ( the father)?) , but for example if we can obtain the American passport quicker than the British passport, could our baby still travel to the UK on the American passport?, Would we still need to register the baby with the UK authorities prior to the travel, or must we have a British passport to enter the UK. ( which requires the registration anyway in order to obtain the British passport)

Kind regards
Dekan

BritInParis

You don’t need to register the birth in the UK in order to obtain a British passport. Consular birth registration is entirely optional. Whilst you can enter on a US passport it’s recommended to obtain a British passport for any eligible children not least as you’ll need to declare them on your fiancée’s spouse visa application and the Home Office will expect to see a British passport number if you are not applying for a child visa for them.

Pulaski

Short answer, you'll need both passports anyway, realistically - assuming you ever intend to visit the US with your daughter she'll need a US passport.and if you (and your daugher) are actually iiving in the UK then she'll need a British passport, otherwise she'll only be admitted to the UK as a visitor, which can cause several issues, including is she is identified as having "overstayed" in the UK..