Not a question, just a remark:
My wife was born a UK citizen and has been traveling to the UK on her French passport for 25 years, and never had her UK passport updated, no need for it. This is over now as you probably know, since March 2026 dual nationals have to travel on their UK passport.
So we had to sort that out, not without many problems and surreal conversations with HM’s passport office.
Now it appears that our children, born in France, cannot travel to the UK on their French passports either, in case someone at customs get curious and finds out their mother is a UK citizen. According to a customs officer, they could be denied entry on UK territory (but he wasn’t sure!)
As a result, until we can actually obtain UK passports for them, they cannot visit their 84 years-old grandfather whose health is declining fast.
This is all wonderful.
One of the most peculiar things on the documents we got from HM’s passport office was the precision that they would be “allowed to travel to the UK but not to enter the country…”
I think it may be a case of her getting lucky never being caught / questioned tbh. I’m dual citizen and have been travelling in and out of the UK for 40 years. I’ve always gone in and out of the UK and in and out if Oz in that passport, it has always been the law. Perhaps being overlooked easy on euro trips but never something you could attempt to get away with coming in in a long haul flight. We ‘smuggled’ our 2 month old in on his Aussie passport 11 years ago as we’d not had time to get a UK one, we figured correctly they wouldn’t send him back on his own. We did get a stern talking to and promised we were going straight to Liverpool to get a passport. So I don’t think it is a brexit thing.
You seem to have an interesting history with passports, Toryroo. 
No no it has been the new rule since February 2026 only and it is a direct consequence of Brexit. You’ve been lucky indeed, some dual nationals have had to go back to Spain because their baby didn’t have a UK passport.
A customs officers told my wife to “pretend” our daughter didnt have UK nationality. A bit risky IMO
Personally I don’t think having a right to a citizenship means you should have it till you claim it.
This seems a particularly presumptuous policy if that’s what tbey really intend and designed only to make life unnecessarily difficult whilst increasing passport fees paid to the UK.
It actually went further than this: As they knew my wife was British, they asked her to get a UK passport, but in order to obtain said passport, she had to prove her British citizenship. Duh.
Same for the children. They’ve been identified as UK citizens, although we never claimed they were.
It is a dog’s dinner. If you wish to financially support the UK government you could get the v expensive certificate”s of entitlement instead. They last forever so with little kids you would eventually be in profit as passport are only 10 years.
Not even: certificates of entitlement can only be obtained in person in Lyon, Paris or Marseille. Very practical when you live in Anjou. Once you’ve paid, they tell you within three weeks if you can actually obtain one or not (there are obscure factors that play in your favour or not, my wife was told she could’nt get one but not why)
And for that price yes, better get a passport.
Chris
I recently witnessed the paperwork for a French colleague whose kid was in this same situation.
The kid is British and the parents (one French, one British) somehow forgot or didn’t click.
Anyway. The process to get the child’s first UK passport was extremely fast.
The application was posted on the 26 June and they received her passport on 15 July (and that includes 6 days for DHL to deliver the envelope to the Passport Office – once the file was checked ok, the actual processing took slightly less a week).
Thanks, that’s good news. It took more than two months for my wife…
That’s a bit rubbish.
Actually, yes, yes! Toryroo is 100% correct. Dual passport holders have always been required to enter or leave the country of nationality on the applicable passport! The big change on 26 February was that a person “entitled” to claim UK citizenship (through parental / grand-parental rights, for example) must have a a UK passport to enter the UK or renounce their right to UK citizenship.
Or have an expensive certificate of entitlement.
Welcome to SF..
I wonder about that. My wife, a Luxembourg citizen, has never applied for UK citizenship but is entitled to apply for it.This is by virtue of a 1983 change in law that permits children of British mothers who are born overseas to apply. Acceptance of their application is not automatic and the application process is not exactly light touch. The informal advice and research I’ve received suggests she is not obliged to apply for and obtain UK citizenship just to visit charity bookshops in Brighton on a rare weekend visit. She will obtain an ETA for the trip.
I don’t know if you disagree?
That means my son and family are in the same boat - he born brit citizen but dual French/british now with two children born in France to French mother. Children have never applied for a brit passport nor are regarded as dual citizens. Where does that leave them as he would like one day to take them to see relatives of his in the UK, where he and I came from and other history. What a stupid carryon
I’m sure this rule about having to enter the UK on a UK passport only applies to people who are already considered to possess British citizenship. But who just haven’t obtained a passport.
And not to people who are entitled to British citizenship but haven’t yet applied for and been granted it.
If you’re not automatically British, no worries. No one is required to apply for citizenship. They’re simply required to obtain a passport if they are already British and want to enter the UK.
I had a similar discussion with my brother & family a few years ago about Irish citizenship. They couldn’t seem to grasp that there’s a difference between possessing citizenship (whether you want it or not), applying for it through ancestry and having the passport to prove it (the last 2 are optional).
Our children, born in France, UK mother, will be denied entry without a UK passport according to HM customs ( but it seems not everyone gets the same feedback). They have been identified as British nationals just because their mother has a UK passport. They are allowed to travel TO the UK but entry will be denied. (basically told to go back to France when they get to Manchester).
Does your wife hold dual nationality French/british?
Yes.
She considered giving up her UK nationality but even this is costly and takes ages.
She finally got her UK passport. The quantity and irrelevance of the documents we had to get translated was just appalling.