Our first child will arrive in 4 weeks.

Wife is Canadian and i get my Citizenship in January.

Does this give my son dual nationality?

Sorry i would research but cant be bothered , im full of the winter flu today

Yes....congratulations...get well soon!

Make sure that after the baby is born you register the birth with the British Embassy (Ottawa?).

Congratulations and good luck to Stu and MrsStu

You cant do the registration thing, hasnt happened in years.

But the kid will be blessed with dual citizenship in any case.

Why?

Congrats!

Done this 3 times now, you don't need to do anything other than apply for the child's British passport (assuming you are a full British Citizen, rather than by descent?) when you can be bothered or need one for some reason. No registration required for Canada.

Apologies Stuabroad, I had friends who had to some years back, and you do still have to in other parts of the world....even nicer, just a happy event and a dual nationality child Very best wishes.

Hey Dashie... Which did you apply for first and which is quicker? Our baby is due in March and I do want to go home end of June. I thought I heard applying for the British one can take quite a while from Canada and wondered if we should apply for citizenship and canadian passport first?

stuabroad, what Dashie says here is crucial. If you weren't yourself born in Britain, even though you may be British, you might not be able to pass on citizenship. The Home Office have a website explaining all this.

Canadian is faster and cheaper. There are currently no time restrictions on children of UK citizens to apply for a passport, but we intend to do that before the kids are 16 as the law on these matters has been known to change in the past and may change in future.

One advantage of getting a Canadian passport is that you can do it in person, which gets past the problem that getting acceptable pics of babes can be hard work, often they wash out and there is insufficient contrast to meet the biometric requirements. It took us 4 goes for our fair haired pale 2 year old! Thankfully this just meant heading down to the basement photostudio in the Scarborouh office for a retake, rather than sending pics back and forth across the Atlantic.

Just because a studio (or Walmart) guarantees the pictures will be acceptable doesnt mean they will be good, it just means that the retake will be free, so no compensation for lost time and hassle involved. For adults its pretty straightforward, but for babies its hit and miss.

When you say do it in person? The nearest big Service Canada centre and take along birth certificate? Do you need to sort out proof of citizenship first or at the same time? I though Canadian was quicker which is why I was thinking of getting that done first and then going for the British one perhaps while we're over there if that's allowed

Canadian passport is quicker and cheaper, yes. You go to the nearest passport office with everything.

However, we've had no issues with photos from Shoppers. Last time they actually sent me with about 4 so the passport office could choose their favourite. It's tricky to get a good photo, we've always found the passport office to be pretty lenient.

Your baby's birth certificate is their proof of Canadian citizenship. You'll need the long form one. Add in your birth certificate to show proof of British citizenship by descent.

Not all Service Canada centers will do passports. There are probably a dozen passport centers in Ontario (half in the GTA), some of which are satellite offices, and some actually do the processing. For same day service I recall we had to go to Scarborough, Whitby didnt have that option. Check the website I guess?

Birth cert is sufficient proof of Canadian citizenship, you may need a guarantor (Dr, Engineer, Notary etc) who will vouch for you... cant remember the details exactly, and may not apply to kids passports anyway... You need the certificate plus the kid so you can take fresh pictures if necessary. If you want to pay extra (or have a funeral to attend in the UK the next day) you can pick up your shiny new canadian passport 2 hours later. Otherwise there is a next day option too, or it will arrive in the mail in a week or three.

Getting a UK passport while visiting the UK but not being actually resident is a bit tricky (for various reasons) If you do it by mail (assuming you have a tame UK mailing address to use) you have to sign on the form that you are ordinarily resident in the UK at that address, and I've never been brave enough to do that on the off chance that the cursory security checks would probably flag that up as false.

If you do it in person at a passport office I seem to recall there was a snag with that too, but I dont recall what it was off the top of my head. Maybe I just didnt fancy spending one of my few days in the motherland in Peterborough, but I think there was more to it than that...

So my plan has always been get the kids canadian passports (they are cheaper and you can enter the UK in the shorter UK line if accompanying a UK passport holder anyway), and then at some point before they turn 16 send off for UK passports for them so they have a choice as young adults. YMMV.

Oh, and the Service Ontario website says to allow 6 weeks for passports, we've never waited more than 3

Thanks peeps.

Iaink I sort of assumed there would be some sort of snag with getting the UK done while there... But you never know ..

Glad to know the Canadian passport sounds easy enough though!!

I'd echo Iaink's comments about the Canadian passport. Same-day service is awesome when necessary. Bear in mind that (unless it's changed in the last four years) infant passports only last 3 years - we've almost been caught out by that in the past and had to do a same-day renewal of one kid's Canadian passport before heading off on a road-trip to the US. The passport (even for a first application) was ready for collection at 4pm having dropped all the paperwork off at 8.30 when the office opened (at, it must be acknowledged, significant additional cost...).

One of the hardest things about babies' passports is getting an acceptable photo. Having struggled for previous child with holding heads up without adult hand/arm getting in the picture, and so on, the Superstore photo place we went to for smallest kid was brilliant - the photographer laid a white backing sheet on the floor, laid 3-week-old baby on his back on the floor, adjusted a couple of lights, and click!

Note as above, though, that not all passport offices do urgent or express service. You'll need to check what works for your travel timelines.