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Children Registering as British Citizens – Fee Waiver Immigration News

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The immigration solicitors at OTS in London have long argued that it was unfair to ask parents to pay over £1,000 to register their children as British citizens. The level of registration fee payable to the Home Office who are meant only the wealthy or comfortably off could provide their children with the advantages of British citizenship. That did not strike British citizenship solicitors as fair or equitable.

We are pleased to report a new Home Office fee waiver for some children applying to register as British Citizens.

UK Online and London Based Immigration Solicitors and British Citizenship Lawyers

For advice on British citizenship applications call the expert London immigration lawyers at OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

The child British citizenship application fees

The current fee for a child to apply for registration as a British citizen is £1,012. The fee is payable per child applicant so Home Office fees can mount up if parents have a number of children who are eligible to apply to register as British citizens.

The waiver of fees for British citizenship child applicants is contained in the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.

The key points that British citizenship solicitors stress are:

  • The fee waiver doesn’t come into force until the 16 June 2022
  • The registration fees will only be waived if the Home Office think a parent or guardian of a child can't afford the fees
  • Applications made by a local authority to register a looked after child as a British citizen are now all fee exempt
  • If a parent or guardian is deemed able to afford the registration fee then the fee remains at £1,012 per registration application
  • There is no sliding scale of fees based on affordability. It is either £1,012 or nil if the Home Office accept the fees should be waived at their discretion

If you are about to submit a British citizenship registration application on behalf of your child you may want to wait until after the 16 June  2022.

If the fees of £1,012 per child have deterred you from making an application on behalf of your child, then now may be the best time to get legal advice on making an application to register your child as a British citizen. British citizenship solicitors can talk you through the advantages of your child securing British citizenship before they reach the age of eighteen.

Are the new child British citizenship application fees fair?

British citizenship solicitors and other interested parties argued that all applications made by or on behalf of children for registration as British citizens should be free of charge. Alternatively, they argued that the Home Office application fee should be reduced to a level that simply covered the Home Office administrative expenses rather than include a ‘profit element’ to subsidise other aspects of Home Office work.

The Home Office disagreed. The decision means that the wealthy and the poorest parents at both ends of the scale will now be able to register their child as a British citizen. However, middle income parents may struggle to get a fee waiver from the Home Office or alternatively the requirement to apply for a waiver may continue to  discourage parents from making the British citizenship registration application for their child because of the £1,012 fee.

The fee waiver application

The new rules state that the £1,012 registration fee can be waived if Home Office officials determine that the fee is “not affordable”.

What ‘’not affordable’’ means is open to interpretation as does it mean that the fees should be payable at the expense of a trip overseas to see extended family or at the expense of putting food on the table or heating the family home? The answer lies in the detail. A Home Office official will assess the financial circumstances of the child and of any other person who  might otherwise reasonably be expected to bear the cost of paying all or part of the registration fee. That normally will mean assessing a parent or guardian’s income and outgoings and looking at their savings.

The guidance suggests that a fee waiver form will need to be submitted together with supporting paperwork to secure the fee waiver. Income, outgoing and savings will be considered as the Home Office will determine if a family has sufficient to pay their essential living expenses. If they do not then the fees will be waived. However, immigration solicitors remain concerned that there will be children in middle income families, where parents are faced with the cost of living crisis, who will be deterred from applying to register their child as a British citizen simply because they can't afford to spend what is a significant amount of money in registering their child’s right to be British.

Next steps

If you aren’t sure if your child is eligible to apply to register as a British citizen or if you will be eligible for the Home Office fee waiver then our British citizenship solicitors can advise you and discuss the benefits of British citizenship for your child so you can weigh up the advantages of applying to register, and whether or not you are likely to have to pay the £1,012 fee.

UK Online and London Based Immigration Solicitors and British Citizenship Lawyers

For advice on a British citizenship application call the expert London immigration lawyers at OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

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