# Dual Citizenship for Baby



## OliviaLemmer (Jan 23, 2013)

Hi,

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. I also need to find some English people living in East London as it can get rather lonely not really knowing anyone.

Thank you.


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## LegalMan (Dec 26, 2012)

Sorry to hear that you feel lonely in East London. When you are in a foreign country you do go through periods where you miss interaction with people from your home country. I suggest either trying the UK forum on this website and hopefully the word will spread, otherwise embrace the fact that you are in South Africa and try and connect with locals.

That aside, you would need to register your child’s birth here in South Africa at the Department of Home Affairs and then apply for a British passport for your child with proof of the South African birth certificate and your birth certificate.

Hopefully that answers your question.


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## Jem62 (Jul 25, 2012)

Quite confusing, search the UK Border Agency website, there are comprehensive details of how to register a child of a UK Citizen born abroad UK Border Agency | Home Page 
Hope it helps, good luck.


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## Saartjie (Mar 1, 2010)

OliviaLemmer said:


> Hi,
> 
> 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. I also need to find some English people living in East London as it can get rather lonely not really knowing anyone.
> 
> Thank you.


Hi there. I had to deal with this when our daughter was born here in SA in 2010. I am Swedish (my husband SA) so I wanted to ensure that our daughter got dual citizenship. Not sure if the process is exactly the same but since Britain and Sweden are both EU it should be similar procedures.

The most important things to sort out are the following:-

1. When you register your baby at Home Affairs they will give you an Abriged Birth Certificate. You should at the same time apply for an Unabridged Birth Certificate as this is the BC that you will need in order to register your baby at the British High Commission. Make sure that you apply for the Unabridged BC as soon as possible as it can be quite a wait to get it. When I applied for my daughter's the waiting time was 6 months (I did however sort that out quicker by applying for it again through the SA embassy in Sweden).

2. My embassy required me to take the Unabridged Birth Certificate and our Unabridged Marriage Certificate to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in Pretoria to get the documents Apostilled before they would accept the documents. You should check with the British High Commission if they require the Apostille.

3. Once I had done the above, all I needed to do was attend the embassy with my daughter and my husband, show our passports and sign a simple form and supply the documents above and that was it. The registration was effected in less than a week and my daughter has now got her dual citizenship and her two passports.

As I said, I am not sure that the process is exactly the same and whether the British Consulate requires the Apostille but the Unabridged Birth Certificate is a must in any event so get that done as soon as you can after registring your baby at HA.

Let me know if you have any questions. Happy to help if I can.

Saartjie


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## LegalMan (Dec 26, 2012)

@Saartjie - excellent advice all round!

@OliviaLemmer - good luck!


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## Saartjie (Mar 1, 2010)

LegalMan said:


> @Saartjie - excellent advice all round!
> 
> @OliviaLemmer - good luck!


Only hope it helps. I had no assistance when I was trying to sort this out for my daughter and as a result it was a terribly frustrating and stressful process. Noone told me about the Abridged/Unabridged BC so as a result I never applied for the Unabridged BC as I did not know it existed. It was only when I contacted the Swedish embassy about registering my daughter that all was revealed. It is not a difficult process really if you know what to expect and what you need to do and where.


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## OliviaLemmer (Jan 23, 2013)

Thanks for all the replies, I will be following all of your advice, I want to get the ball rolling as soon as possible for applying as I know that it takes a while for most forms to be processed.


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## jenny.unsworth (Jul 7, 2011)

Hi!
I just went through the process with my son.
Firstly, your child is a british citizen because you are, so you don't need to apply for citizenship just go straight for a child passport.
If you google 'how to apply for a british passport from south africa' you will find all the info you need on the ukinsouthafrica website (won't let me post a link here).

The application forms are on the right hand side of the page. You obviously need the child one.

The other lady is correct, they ask for an unabridged birth certificate, but this can take a long time to come through, it's now a year since I applied and still no birth certificate  BUT however, to speed the process up the British Embassy will accept the recieipt for your unabridged certificate, the abridged certificate and a notification of birth. If you ask your hospital or wherever your child is born they should be able to write out a birth notification for you.

They also ask for an unabridged marriage certificate and birth certificates for you and hubby, I didn't send those for my hubby or our marriage certificate because again, we don't have them, been waiting two years for our unabridged marriage certificate, anyway, it didn't seem to matter.

So when you apply all in all you need to send:
- You passport, hubby's ID, your birth certificate, his birth certificate, your marriage certificate, baby's abridged birth certificate, the recieipt for your unabridged certificate, a notification of birth and your application forms, plus your form of payment. All the docs are sent to pretoria, once it gets there it's extremely quick and efficient! Took less than 2 weeks to get my sons passport.

One thing they do say, they prefer if you haven't got an unabridged certificate that you apply before the baby is 8 months old, my son was 12months and they allowed it but I think better be safe than sorry and apply as soon as baby is born.

Hope all this helps! If you have any other questions just ask.

One final note! You have to have a british passport to take your son to the UK - he's a citizen and they won't allow you to get a visa for him, because he doesn't need one. You need a south african passport too to be allowed back into south africa with him. Costly process but well worth it.


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