Taking UK-born baby back to Oz for first holiday - which passport to apply for?

[MarquiseOfMelburnia]

I am an Australian who has lived in the UK for the past 13 years (permanent residency visa/Australian passport). British partner and I had DS here 15 months ago and want to take him back to Oz for 2 weeks to see the family in November.

As he's not travelled at all yet I am just wanting to know what the best thing to do is re applying for a passport? I did email the Australian High Commission but found their reply to be quite confusing, to say the least!

So, given that we are also planning on moving back permanently to Australia next year anyway, my question is:

-Would I be best to apply for a UK passport for him, for now? If so would I need to also apply for a tourist visa to cover the trip in November?

-Or should I just apply for Citizenship by Descent, followed by an Australian passport, then (I assume) apply to have him put onto my permanent residency visa?

-If I apply directly for the Aus passport will my son automatically have dual UK/Australian nationality, given he will then have an Oz passport but UK birth certificate?

If you can process all of the above info without getting confused, I salute you! Any advice appreciated.

I have had the exact same situation.

You have to apply for the citizenship by decent and then you can apply for an Australian passport.

You can apply for a British passport in the ordinary style as your ds was born in Britain and is British.

If you have two passports you can use the British passport when traveling to Britain and the Australian one when traveling to Australia.

If you are just going to get the British passport he will need a visa-which will be weird for you. I once had to go in a different queue from my dc which was a bit

Passports are generally cheaper when you are in the country so it might be worth looking that up and getting the Australian one when you are in Australia.

You don't need two passports of course. We just keep one current passport per child for financial reasons but my dh insisted we got them both passports for both nationalities as soon as we could just in case of any law changes!

Regardsless of an aussie passport application, register your son and get his Australian citizen certificate. Then it's done. If you then want to get him a passport, you've already done the first step. It took us a couple of weeks, i seem to remember to get it.

Your son is a citizen of both countries (if you get it recorded) so he will not need visas in either country if he has both passports.

Would I be best to apply for a UK passport for him, for now? If so would I need to also apply for a tourist visa to cover the trip in November?

You will need to get your son a UK passport (if you only had an Australian passport it may be difficult when you return to the UK and he doesn't have the necessary visas). If you only have the UK passport you will need to get a tourist visa for him as your husband would.

-Or should I just apply for Citizenship by Descent, followed by an Australian passport, then (I assume) apply to have him put onto my permanent residency visa?

You can apply for Citizenship by Descent at any time. You will be given a certificate and you will need this when you apply for an Australian passport for him or if after he is 18 he would like an Australian passport.

-If I apply directly for the Aus passport will my son automatically have dual UK/Australian nationality, given he will then have an Oz passport but UK birth certificate?

If you have both passports he will have dual nationality.

An Australian passport if expensive (currently £74 for a child) an it only lasts 5 years and you need to visit London to get it. It is £49 for a UK child passport.

Get a UK passport and then apply for Citizenship by Descent as he will need this anyway if he at any stage wants an Australian passport.

This what I have done with my 2 girls. They have there Citizenship by Descent certificate but when I travel to Australia they use their UK passports and a tourist visa. When they are over 18 and want to visit Australia that is the time to get their Australian passport as it will last 19 years then.

Sorry

It will last 10 years.

That's great, thanks for the replies!

maybe the rules have changed but when I went to get a visa for ds1 to go to Australia for first visit to gparents (dh Australian, me British) the staff at the Aus High Commission wouldn't let me get a visa for him as he was Australian - we had to get an Australian passport for him as they told me you couldn't enter your own country on a visa ... so the dc have always gone into Australia with their Aus passports and come back into the UK with their British passports

Thanks Basildon, as you say I think it will be best to just get one of each passport before we go - the Aus one for the outward journey and the UK one for return.

we got passports for our kids from both of their countries (UK/USA) just to establish they were entitled to both.

Basildon is correct. We have just become Australian citizens and are no longer allowed to leave or enter Australia on our UK passports. We must get an Australian passport. This is written in the paperwork we were given to become citizens.

Our original visas in uk passports are now null and void.