ETA for the UK and dual citizenship

[helluvatime]

If I have understood correctly, you need to travel on your British passport to avoid having to get an ETA OR get a certificate of entitlement (which costs £550!!!) This seems very unfair to me and is particularly so for those of us who have dual nationality kids who want to travel home to see grandparents.

My kids actually do have UK passports now but did not get them for a long time as we are a relatively low income household and getting everyone two passports when not really needed was too much. I think a lot of people are going to be caught out this way! Oh for the pre-Brexit days when you could travel on a £15 ID card....

Anyway, is this right? Has anyone been turned back because they are a British citizen but without a passport?

I know! I was very nervous at passport control especially as I was on british passport. But like I said, I really couldn't get the passports renewed before travelling.

The thing is, if I had never ever had a British passport for my DC then this wouldn't be a problem. They could just always travel on their EU one and no one would know they are dual nationals.

The problem comes when you have had a British passport once and it expires.

If you can afford to travel internationally, you can afford to have the correct travel documents.

i think you haven’t thought this through.
How would the U.K. government know your kids were British if they don’t have a passport?
At the very least they would need all of the documents and translations that are required for a passport so there would be substantial cost to the family.
The government would also have to set up a new process and hired staff to deal with it.

Sometimes you have to deal with the cost of your choices.

I have 3 nationalities. There are costs associated with maintaining this.

£107.50 is the cost if you apply online.

Just get some more money then. Work a bit extra, do overtime and get your passport.

British citizens who travel, usually have passports. Do you think they can afford to travel abroad but don’t have the money to spend £100 on a passport? Please…
If foreigners get British citizenship, they also get the British passport because ultimately that’s the official proof that they are British citizens.

Feels like a lot of people are being unnecessarily harsh to the OP here. I personally think the new system is a reasonable thing for the government to do, but obviously it nonetheless sucks for people like the OP who have to shell out quite a lot of money for something that until a month ago was completely unnecessary. And for people saying it’s just £60, that’s totally untrue. My kids British passport cost more like £200, taking into account the extra costs for doing it from abroad, couriering documents back and forth, getting documents (pointlessly) translated. Totally reasonably to have a moan about sudden extra costs like this OP!

Totally reasonably to have a moan about sudden extra costs like this OP!

It's not really THAT sudden though. It's been clear since Brexit that something will change. And that ETA will include EU citizens have also been announced a good while ago.

Lots of people are saying if you can travel you can afford a passport are being deliberately obtuse. You can fly from the EU to UK for very little cost now
People living in the EU are not all blanket “privileged”, some moved for their jobs, some left for an alternative life, often before Brexit, some fell in love with a EU national & moved.
They remain British & entitled to return for any reason they choose, most likely, visiting their families.
English citizens living overseas can register DC at birth with the consulate. They do not have to buy passports to prove they are British.
If the DC do have passports they will all expire on different dates.
Renewing from Overseas is labourious & expensive, its not the bog standard UK cost as OP has repeatedly explained.
It is undeniably punitive, making oversees UK nationals pay for passports to visit the UK. when EU nationals can just pay for an ETA

As I said, I got an ETA yesterday. I did the quiz on the website as an Australian citizen, and it said I should get one so I did. I did not want to travel in on my UK Passport and back on my Aussie one as a friend did this and it caused her issues at Oz border patrol. If I still had a valid Irish passport I could have used that but I don’t. I have two seperate friends who have travelled back to the UK in the last few weeks and didn’t get an ETA at all. So I don’t think me having an ETA on an Aussie passport will cause any issues, never mind getting me turned away at the border!😀 If it does I will let you all know, but this is really a non issue. If you have another citizenship I don’t think border patrol give a shit if you also have Uk too, and if this changes then I will be happy to renew another passport if I have to, as I know how lucky I am to have this first world problem.

Not really. A lot of people presumed that UK citizens could just buy the ETA like everyone else - like the EU is doing for EU citizens in the UK.

Domestic Brits have to register their children at birth.

Domestic Brits have to get passports for this children to travel.

Domestic British family passports all expire at different dates too.

None of this is a special “living overseas” issue.
It’s an issue if you want to cross borders, just as it would be for a domestic Brit.

Taking citizenship for your children born overseas is a choice. You don’t have to do it, your children will always remain entitled to citizenship. You also don’t need to be a genius to figure out that you might need a passport for them at some stage.

FWIW I have registered a child born overseas in a system way more expensive and less friendly than the UK aystem, so I know very well what the OP is moaning about.

It really doesn’t cost that much more (£20) and we got our new passports within 2 weeks.

That said, I’d do see your point. They should just allow overseas UK citizens to also apply for an ETA. Easy.

£20 extra plus the courier fees for each passport - for something that we didn't need a few weeks ago.

I understand what you are saying OP.
Wanting to make people aware which I think is very good of you.
Everyone impacted by this will eventually get to know the details and will adjust to the new rules.
The cost is not necessarily the issue here (as some PPs are misunderstanding) because these administrative things cost what they cost and having children is expensive anyway, this is a drop in the ocean in the great scheme of things.

Why did you apply for their British passports in the first place? Mine both had settled status at the same time I've applied. They now have British passports by choice but for a long time, they traveled with their EU one and travel back to the UK without any issues with their settled status and it is free to apply. I don't know if you can still do so now that they have British passports though.

Not weird at all. Visiting to "help" elderly relatives is not the same thing as contributing to the UK. Who "helps" them when you aren't on a visit (i.e. most of the time) and how much "help" do the kids give, since it was having to pay for them to viist their grandparents that you complained about anyway! I spend money abroad. I don't expect the benefits of citizenship simply because I spend money. You do not pay taxes, but taxes pay for many of the things that you benefit from in the UK as a citizen. You have chosen to live somewhere else.Stop complaining about not being treated like a resident of Britain when you aren't.

I didn't vote for Brexit and I didn't want it. But there we go. Your are perfectly entitled to renounce your British citizenship if you don't like being charged to for a passport.

You do not pay taxes, but taxes pay for many of the things that you benefit from in the UK as a citizen
What?

Yes, I was fairly recently told here in Australia by the British embassy people that we had to get a passport for my son to enter the UK, as he was a registered citizen. I don’t mind too much as we are stopping over in Turkey on the way and British passports are exempt from the Turkish ETA but not Australian passports, so we’ll save money on both that and the UK ETA.

I think with the new electronic chips inside the passports now they can extract more shared data too, so it might be harder to pretend you aren’t British?

I think you are deliberately obtuse now. The EU is not country! It’s a union of countries. An EU citizen living in the UK doesn’t need an ETA for the EU.
Can’t you really not understand why a country doesn’t want its citizens entering on a tourist visa?

Yes that’s life. You know what your options are and your kids actually have both passports. So no idea what this post is about really.

Once again you have misunderstood the situation. An EU dual citizen with a British passport won't need to get a EU passport to travel to the EU - the mirror image of my situation. Lots of people are not aware of this rule as this post has shown. Not sure why you're wittering on about the EU being a Union...

Travel is expensive. There's always something that feels like it disadvantages one group over another. That's life. Your dual national kids have other advantages.

it's not "unfair". If you have a UK passport, travel on that. If you don't get an ETA.

I CBA with the faff of getting a UK passport, they are way too expensive for what they deliver. So i got an ETA and travel on my EU passport.

it's a tenner or so every 2 years. It isn't onerous compared to the cost of the 2 alternatives.

I have an ETA It amuses the British border guards when i travel to UK