Is my child automaticaly a British citizen or do I have to “make” him one?
I have read this this page. I am a bit thick and am unable to decipher all the jargon.
The child’s father was Scottish and the child was born in New Zealand.
As is the NZ tradition, he will one day want to strap on a backpack and go a-wandering. It would be benficial to have British citizenship.
Do I have to do anything now or is he already a citizen?
By the looks of it, it depends on how the father got his citizenship & when the child was born.
However, if it’s anything like other countries, while your child is a citizen, you don’t have a bit of paper to prove it (which comes in handy). In my case, I was born a Canadian citizen and a New Zealand citizen, as well as my Australian birth. But unless I apply for a certificate of citizenship, I can’t prove it in any convenient form (and I need such certificates to apply for passports etc). Such application is generally not too difficult or costly - birth (or citizenship) certificates for all involved, marriage certificates, photos etc, and filling out of a form and an admin fee. I’ve never bothered with the NZ paperwork. 2 passports is enough for me.
It depends on whether you and your child’s father are/were married. My father was born in Scotland, my mother’s Canadian, and I was born in Canada. All I had to do to get a British passport was to fill in the application form (from the British consulate, or I think you can get it online), and include my full birth certificate listing both parents, and my parents’ marriage certificate. As I understood the rules when I was getting the paperwork together, if the child’s claim on British citizenship is through their father, the parents need to have been married, but not if the claim is through their mother.
Also, one of the parents needs to have been born in the U.K., so if your partner was born outside - say his parents were working abroad - then his children are only British if born inside the U.K.
The most important thing is whether you were married to the child’s father. If you weren’t he has no right to British citizenship. Only women pass on their citizenship rights to children born outside of marriage.
If you were, and your husband was born in the UK, your son has a right to citizenship.
Yep. His Father was born in the UK (Manchester…though he would have smacked you if you called him English…raised in Edinburgh). We were married in NZ in 1989 and and the child was born in 1991, in NZ.
So he is a citizen now or do I need to formalise this?
When I was a child having a British born grandfather could have got me citizenship, then the law changed.
Should I do something formal now to “make” him a citizen or will the father thing always be enough?
If it’s important to you that he gets promoted from Kiwi to Brit 
you should do it straight away as the rules do change over time and you never know what the situation will be when he is old enough to get a bar job in England.
The right to citizenship has been removed from other groups in the past (although as the direct decendant of a sweattie he should be OK).
Hey we all know it is a demotion to become a Pom, the immigration statistics show becoming a Kiwi is a promotion.
He can pull a pint till he is 25 just by being a Kiwi (hey don’t blame me, you just seem to love us in your pubs 
). He has also been schooled in the “how-to-pull-a-pint-after-your-visa-has-expired” school, with a follow up course in “you-can–always-pull-a-pint-in-London-because-Poms-are-lazy-wankers-and-won’t-do-it-themselves”
I’d just like him to be all legal like 
You’ve got to love those countries with weedy currencies that think that minimum wage is worth working for! Bless.
Again I would hurry up and get him sorted, as the working holiday visa could be removed at any time (there’s no intention to do so at the moment, but immigration is a hot topic here and this is the sort of thing that could get caught up in the melee)
I think he’s a citizen, but that doesn’t mean that you should do nothing:
As owl says, I’d get the documents now rather than later - once you have it, it is harder for them to take it away than it is to refuse to give it to you in the first place…
Grim
(yet another Southern Hemisphere person clogging the streets of south-west London)
You have a good point.
Of course all the pommy flock doing working holidays sweeping up sheeps dags will suffer too.
Hmmmm pulling pints or sweeping up dags?? I chose pulling pints.
But seriously Owl I read through the page in my OP and I got the vague impression that he IS a citizen. Am I really wrong?
He doesn’t need a visa, he is entitled to a British passport same as my kids.
Yeah I knew this don’t ask I’m just still trying to get someone to decipher that page to see if he IS a citizen or I need to MAKE him a citizen (I really wish I understood all that BLAH BLAH).
Looks like the important bits are Paragraph 7, which says there is an entitlement to a Brit passport due to the father being British born and descended, and Paragraph 19, which states the documents needed to apply for a British passport, calm kiwi. Kinda like me, I guess – my mum was born near London, of Brit secent. I could have two passports (but I prefer the Kiwi one).
Nothing is automatic, except the entitlement. But your son will still have to register for the citizenship. Contact the british consulate today to ask 'em, I’d advise.
Thank you Ice. Takes a Kiwi to cut to the chase. I will give them a ring tomorrow.
I don’t even understand what you said! :eek:
Does he already have a British passport?If he does,then he’s a citizen automatically.
I was born in NZ. My father was British so I automatically got a British passport which states on it ‘British citizen’.Later we applied to the NZ Embassy,filled in the details and was issued with a NZ passport.
And its much cooler than the crummy British-now-European ones.I will NOT have a European passport.So I ditched it.
Apparently as well,it’s easier to get into US on a New Zealand passport than on a British one.
That’s a bit surprising, after all the ANZUS/non-nuclear kerfluffle. Far out.