Can I let my Britain passport lapse?

[Puffinshop]

I'm a dual citizen living outside the UK but I visit the UK regularly. My British passport is about to lapse. I hold another EEA passport.

I know that if I can't show a valid British passport I'll have to pay for an ETA now. But that's only 10 pounds for 2 years whereas a whole new passport, applying from overseas, is 120 pounds for 10 years.

I know you're supposed to enter the UK on a British passport if you have one, but am I required to have one or can I just essentially behave as though I'm not a British citizen for the purposes of travel? We only go for short visits to see family, I don't need to live or work there.

According to the ETA website, you do not need an ETA if you are a British citizen and are expected to prove your nationality with a British or Irish passport. You can apply for entry if Icelandic from April 2025, but my guess would be that they will not be fooled because they already have all your details at the Home Office and will reject your application based on the expectation you will enter on your British passport.

I am also a dual national and my other country is very good at tracking where we are and I’d be expected to travel on my passport as a citizen. I don’t think it matters how long you plan to stay. It’s simply that you don’t slot into the category of foreign tourist, because you aren’t.

I suppose if you go through the application for the ETA it may well ask somewhere if you are a UK citizen....?

You dont actually have to have even a passport to enter the UK if you are a British citizen, you just have to be able to establish that you are one (I suppose a British birth certificate with some official form of photo ID would do this) . I also dont think that border control would be thrilled with you 😁

so if you have a passport for a different country that is valid, you can use that to depart from your country of origin (so the airline lets you board the plane) and then enter the UK with your expired passport. You wouldnt even need an ETA thingy as you are British

BUT its likely to be stressful and require some arguing at Border Control, so do you really want to do that

https://www.ukabroad.net/return-to-the-uk-with-an-expired-passport/

So, all joking aside, it means that if you hold dual nationality and are travelling between those two countries, you need to have both passports with you?

So in my case, if I'm travelling between France and the UK and have both passports, I need to show the UK border control my UK passport when entering the UK, and show my French passport when arriving back in France.

If I'm travelling between France and the USA I would only need my French passport.

Is that right?

So, when booking travel in the first case, which passport number should I use?

No ... I know people who don't hold a British passport who are British.

I almost exclusively travel on my Irish passport but carry both with me. I've never been picked up on it.

I'm in the same boat and asked the ETA helpline. Basically they couldn't help because the situation wasn't in their training papers. I assume they assume all British citizens have a British passport. They also couldn't tell me what questions you have to answer when you apply for one. I.e. if they ask outright "are you a British citizen" and it fails on that. They also couldn't tell me if an out of date passport was enough proof or birth certificates. My DC are British but have never had a British passport issued.

@UselessMumAlert

That's our situation too.
All fine before Brexit as the DC used French ID cards.
Since Brexit they've been using their French passports.
Now finally getting round to applying for UK passports as mentioned above.

If you only have a european passport, even with an ETA, you're still a tourist who can only stay for a short trip. If you tell them you live here, they will ask why you do not have Settled Status attached to your passport. You could be refused entry and even if you got let in on your European passport, you'd be in trouble next trip for having overstayed. We always travel with both. I was told to present the EU passport to the EU border and the UK one to the UK border.

I don't mind being a 'tourist' or 'visitor' because that does most accurately describe the nature of my travel to the UK.

I know other Brits here who are planning to get ETAs rather than passports but I'd rather not be the one whose trip gets ruined 😆

Someone might correct me but yes I think you’re legally supposed to have ALL your passports with you when you cross the border.
fwiw the fact you have a British passport will show up on their screens.

But what I was proposing is not having a British passport. I've got one atm but if I do nothing I won't have one for much longer.

If I had one I'd use it obviously, wouldn't pay an extra tenner for no reason.

There's a border control on each side, the UK side and the non UK side.

If it's a UK border control staffed by UK border police, you show your UK passport. If it's a border control staffed by border police from the other country you hold a passport for, you show them that passport. If the other country is an EU/EEA country then always show that passport when travelling in Europe.

If you're travelling to a completely different country then you can use either, but if you need a visa or use a visa waiver scheme then you'll need to use the passport linked to that.

The UK Government website says that a UK citizen can enter the UK with a valid UK passport or a Gibraltar identity card.

It also says that citizens of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein can enter on a passport.

I am in the same boat as you, OP. I renewed because without a passport there is no easy way/one document that I could show to show citizenship. I do not fancy having to ask for copies of my birth certificate, find my NI number or a 20+ year old NHS card to demonstrate that yes, I am actually British. I also find Border Force hostile & grumpy so I just felt it was easier to renew my passport.

My personal bugbear is why the UK is so against identity cards. Cheap, easy and valid for all travel within Schengen and EU state territories.

Edited for spelling.

When you book your flights, don't you have to provide the passport ID number that you're travelling under on the booking?

If that is the case, then book your flights using the non-UK passport and only use that one.

If you're a citizen of a given country you are supposed to enter on that country's passport or ID document, this is the case everywhere. Countries can't give visas to their own citizens so they shouldn't issue you an ETA (ETA is not a visa but same principle).

Whether or not they realise you're a citizen when you enter or apply on a foreign passport is a different question!

We sometimes have to travel with up to four passports, yes it is a pain.

That's not the issue @LookItsMeAgain, that's what I've been doing for the past 10 years. The problem is we now need an ETA and no one can tell us if one of the questions is "Are you a British citizen?"

We don't want to lie on the application but if there is and we say yes, we can't get an ETA.

Border control will want someone with a foreign passport to have an ETA, which we won't be able to link to our current (nonUK) passport.

There is no clear guidance on what is acceptable proof of Britishness! Be that lapsed passport, birth certificate, copy of birth certificate etc

We’re talking 15 years ago but my FIL was born in a Commonwealth country when under British rule, so held an overseas British passport. He let it lapse years ago & got new citizenship of a different country.

He travelled on that passport to the UK for a work meeting, and Border Control advised him to just carry his expired British passport as evidence of his British citizenship.

Honestly I would just get the bloody thing and be done with all the possible variations and ramifications.

My Dh travels a lot for work and has dual nationality (UK / US). Last time he went into the UK on his British passport he had gone through security and then got stopped and asked a bunch of stupid questions like "why are you in England, have you travelled here before" etc. I mean really stupid.

For a while I didn't have a current British passport. My other country requires citizens to enter on that passport but the UK does not. I would go to the desk, present my expired British passport and other passport and they would let me in. One border guard suggested I renew it but otherwise no one ever minded because I could show I had the right to enter and the UK currently doesn't require citizens to enter on a UK passport.

Sending off your other passport is a nuisance though. That's why I didn't get round to renewing my British one as I'd have been without a passport and unable to go home if needed at short notice (this was when it was taking weeks to renew).

If I were to present my lapsed British passport as proof of citizenship, would that also count as proof of my DC's citizenship?

you don't need to send the other passport off any longer. photocopies are ok.

Definitely not, it's a PITA to get their first British passport if they're born abroad (which essentially is a process of proving that they are British citizens). They want to see all sorts 😄

can't you renew your UK passport at the british embassy / consulate in Iceland

That’s what I do as the vast majority of my overseas travel is to the EU and my second passport is an EU one. Quicker and means my UK passport doesn’t get filled with stamps. It wouldn’t matter if travelling to the US for example, unless your second passport was a US one.