# SA in NZ, renounce SA citizen



## nhs84 (Jul 2, 2013)

Hi all,

I have a friend in NZ who needs some advise please.

He got his NZ citizenship & passport last year but didn't request to keep his SA citizenship.
I'm sure this means that he automatically loses his SA citizenship, but does he still need to apply to official renounce it?
Or can permission to maintain SA citizenship be applied for retrospectively?

He has to travel to SA in September and we know that you can't enter SA on a foreign passport if you still have citizenship and/or passport?

Any help would be great.
Cheers,
Nick


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## escapedtonz (Apr 6, 2012)

I don't think SA allows dual citizenship so he may have lost it when he became an NZ citizen.
He should get in touch with the SA authorities asap to find out what he has to do for entry in September.


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## Sherwood Botsford (Mar 19, 2019)

Every nation has it's own rules.

General rule: If you aren't asked to surrender your existing passport, your new country doesn't care about dual citizenship. There would be some explicit piece of paper he signed too.

The old country may not allow dual citizenship. My limited experience (Canada, UK, USA) is that commonwealth nations allow dual citizenship. US says officially that dual nationals should enter only on a US passport, but they grumph at you and have let me in on my canuck passport every time I've tried it. "My US one has lapsed..."

However your friend should be able to solve this with a phone call to the S.A. embassy.


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