# Dual Citizenship question



## OliviaL (Oct 31, 2012)

Hi I have already posted the following question.


_I need some help. I am married to a South African and I am British living here. We are expecting our first child and would like to know how to go about registering it when its born in March to have dual citizenship for both in SA and UK so there are no problems when we do decided to to move back to the UK. I have searched the internet for help but no where seems to be able to give me a proper answer and the British High Commission now does not registers births. I am at a loss and really need to start thinking about how to do this any help will be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you'_


We have had our son now and are in the process of getting a british and south african child passport. I have found out that he is a citizen of the UK by birth right. My question this time is do I have to go to the British High Commision in Pretoria to submit the application form for the UK passport or send all the details off. Also what forms do I need to fill in for the british one. I know that I now have to go to the HA here in East London to get the forms for the south african passport. Hopefully the whole process wont take long as my husband and I want to take our son who will be 9 months old in December back home from Christmas.

Any help on this matter is grately appreciated.


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

Hi Olivia, 
Have not seen your first posting, according to this website, this was your first posting?

Anyways, I think someone like LegalMan may be the best qualified to assist you, is the father a South African citizen or does he have dual citizenship, etc etc.

You will have to register your baby's birth at the Dept of Home Affairs in South Africa. They should be able to assist you.


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

Registering a birth

All children born in South Africa must be registered within 30 days of their birth (in terms of the Births and Deaths Registration Act, 1992. 

A parent, parents, guardian or any other person legally responsible for the child must complete Form BI-24 (with black ink only) and it must be submitted to the nearest office of the Department of Home Affairs if you are in South Africa, or the nearest South African embassy, mission or consulate if you are overseas. 

Once the child’s birth has been registered, an abridged birth certificate is issued free of charge, usually a day or so after the registration application has been submitted.


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## LegalMan (Dec 26, 2012)

I'm not sure what you need help with. I cannot assist with anything regarding UK passports. Many South African citizens have two passports. The trouble usually comes in when the other country (not SA) doesn't allow dual citizenship (such as Germany).


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## Jennybadenhorst (May 22, 2013)

Hi Olivia

If you still need an answer then here goes:
To apply for your child's British passport you need his unabridged birth certificate, your and your husbands birth certificate, your marriage certificate and your passport and hubby's ID. 

If your child was born in March as far as I understand you will have been issued with an unabridged birth certificate, if you we're only issued with an Abridged certificate then you need to apply for the unabridged at South African home affairs ASAP, and then include the receipt in your application for his passport as well as anotification of birth from the facility where your child was born.

All documents need to be originals, they send it back in about a week or so then the passport follows later.

As well as those documents above the application form and the credit card payment form are found on the gov . uk website which need to be sent too

They ask you to arrange a courier to take the application to Pretoria British embassy then they courier everything back to you as part of their fee.

I got my sons passport in January in about 2weeks but they say it can take up to 6weeks.

If your child has an unabridged birth certificate please ignore the part about applying for it and notification of birth, that is then unnecessary.
Please ask if something is not clear! 

This is all based on my experience in January 2013

Jenny


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