Giving birth in NL, getting British citizenship

[skihorse]

I'm due July 2010, my partner and I are both British citizens but are living here in NL and the baby will be born here.

How will the registration of the birth go? Presumably being registered at the local gemeente is a given - but how do I notify the UK authorities? Do I have to go up to The Hague? Has anyone been through this before?

Will the baby have dual citizenship?

NOt sure about NL, but our dd was born in Oman and we had to register her and get a birth cert and passport at the British Embassy. It cost an arm and a leg so start saving. Dual nationality wasn't possible for her not sure about how the Dutch view it.
Good luck.

If you are Brtish citizens the child will be already British at birth (by descent)

If the NL allow dual c/ship, (as does the UK) the baby will be duel.

You apply for a BC ppt for the child via your nearest Embassy (Paris seems to have become the hub ppt office for most of Europe) They might need translated/certified docs.

You don't need to register the birth with the UK authorities, you can if you want a UK birth cert, but it doesn't confer anything.

dd was born in CH. We registered her with the local gemeinde through the hospital to get a local birth certificate then had to apply to the British embassy for a British birth certificate and separately for her passport(one was processed in Berne, the other in Geneva). There was no issue of dual citizenship - you have to jump through many complicated hoops to claim Swiss nationality so by default she was British. Somehow she was already on UK system so there was no problem registering with a gp etc on our return to UK.

Both dcs born in Paris - they have French birth certificates, but are not allowed to be French. We paid to get British birth certificates from the British embassy. I don't think it's a legal requirement - just thought it would be simpler in the future as they are both British to have the necessary documents.

Thank you everyone, it doesn't seem too complicated then and I'm surely not the first British woman to give birth on mainland Europe that's for sure!

DS was recently born in Amsterdam. We are Aussies so can't help you with the British side of things.

However, as neither DH nor I are Dutch, DS is not entitled to Dutch citizenship. It is not based on place of birth, rather parentage. Most Dutch people are surprised about this when I tell them that DS isn't Dutch.

DH just had to register his birth at the Town Hall (gemeente) within 3 days of birth, he got an international birth certificate, and we applied for Australian citizenship (quite a process and only granted 2 months after DS born and not backdated so DS was essentially stateless for the first 2 months of his life)

Expat2 Wow! That's interesting - I just assumed that the baby would be entitled to a Dutch passport. I suppose having 2 EU passports isn't that useful but it's still surprising!

The international birth certificate sounds great though - is that in English?

I am not sure about those new fangled international birth certificates, but would say make sure you get one written in the language of the country she will be a citizen of. Our dd has three BC's, one is handwritten in arabic, one is typewritten in arabic and there is the british embassy one in english. I dread to think what issues we'd have had if we hadn't got a british one. When we moved to Thailand, me and my dh's wedding certificate is in Italian. That caused endless problems with immigration.

Definitely do all the paperwork for your baby as a British citizen - that should be your priority, IMO, since both her parents are British and he/she will be de facto brought up in British culture in the home.

Whether or not a child gets citizenship of the country of birth totally depends on local law.

Ski - you will get a local birth certificate in Dutch. Then, as non Dutch people, you also get an international birth certificate which is in English, Dutch, French and German (I think the last one is German).

Not being EU citizens, we were hoping DS would get dual Dutch/Australian citizenship but it wasn't to be.

Kreecher - our wedding certificate is handwritten in Greek, so I know where you are coming from there. And the only official translation we have of it is into Dutch. Hmmm, ultimately not so handy.

londonlottie that is not true, I used to work for the Nationality Office in the UK, you do not have to have them registered at the consulate if they are already British by virtue of your birth. That is just another way of the HO making money! They are entitled to a British passport (which let's face it is what we're talking about, rather than a British birth cert!)without a British b/cert. Were you both born in the UK?

If both parents are BC by descent, the child can be registered under certain circumstances as a British Citizen (depends on length of time in the past the parents have lived in the UK etc) and obviously it's a bonus to do this if you can.

Hi there Lottie,

The confusion in these cases arises because of 2 things- the people in the Embassies are employed by the Foreign Office, but are being asked to enact Home Office legislation- kind of like someone in the Department of Transport advising you about your tax returns! Secondly, there are 2 types of "registration" enacted by the Embassies for children, registration as a Brit for those children who aren't but who have, through their parents some kind of entitlement, and consular birth registration, for British children, born abroad, whose parents want, for whatever reason, a birth cert in English.

If you check this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nationality_law

you can see that your twins when born, will be British by descent through their father being British born. You don't need to do a consular registration of the birth, unless you feel like it. (and you'll be paying twice!!) Simply sending their Swiss b/certs and evidence of their father's citizenship will be enough to get them ppts.

Before 2006 unmarried Brit men couldn't confer nationality, but that has changed now.

Your own nationality would seem to also be British by descent, so it would be your husband's British-ness that can be passed on.

HTH!

Nope.
We are in Italy, dd has Brit ppt and Italian b/cert.
I'd say the only advantage would be, as one of the pps have said, that in English, a cert would be more universally understood, but it doesn't confer anything nationality wise.

DD born in singapore, we just went to the consulate with her birth cert. delivered by singapore authorities and applied for a passport. End of story.

we are naturalized british citizens, so if you are british born, I don't see why it should be more difficult.

PS, one more thing, the authorities will want to see evidence of your husband's nationality- ie his Brit ppt or b/cert. If, when you apply for ppts for the babies you don't have his b/cert with you, they can check via his ppt what his actual naty status is.

Londonlottie, DS and DD were both born in CH to British parents. We have the Swiss birth certificates and used these to apply for Britih passports. I've never got round to getting a British birth certificate and have never needed one, it's the passport that matters ime.

My dc were born in Germany and have only German birth certificates (I'm British, dh is Irish), but the modern certificates conveniently have the important bits translated into French and English as well. This was all we needed to get British passports and establish British citizenship, which we did when they were a few months old. The embassy people told us quite openly that there would be no real advantage in our position (within the EU) in getting a British birth certificate.

We've since let the passports lapse and they use their Irish ones, because the British ones are appallingly expensive and have to be renewed every three years. It's a total rip-off industry. Once nationality has been established for the first time, the passports don't have to be kept active AFAIK.

Whether your child gets local nationality not only depends on the country, but the date of the birth. Dd1 doesn't have German citizenship but dd2 does, just because of a change in the law in the meantime.

The Swiss birth certs are typically sparse and functional ! We thought it might make things easier longer term if dd could opt to produce a British one and it looked better Legally you don't need it though and can just apply for UK p'port etc using the Swiss one.

Yes there is an advantage to having a Brit birth certificate if you have ONLY British nationality - if you want to marry a French person and you are British because if you don't then they quite frankly don't believe you when you say the only nationality you have is British even though you can show them your passport....I love the French....

British pp renewals for children are every 5 years, no? Mine were.

Sorry - if you want to marry a French person and you aer just British because...