Citizenship via Passport vs Registering a birth abroad

[Skylar1331]

I am a US citizen and my husband is a UK citizen and we are both resident in Spain. We recently had our first child (he was born in Spain) and I have already applied for his US passport/reported his birth/applied for his US social security number. However, we are somewhat confused as to the requirements for obtaining his UK citizenship.

As his father is British and we were married at the time of his birth he is eligible for citizenship. I researched the process for registering a birth abroad and it is quite expensive (almost 300 GBP). His father researched it as well and found out we don't need to register the birth in order to obtain his passport which is done via sending documents through the mail including a translation of his birth certificate.

My question is which option gives him citizenship or do they both make him a British citizen? If it isn't necessary to register the birth in order to obtain citizenship, why is there the option to do so? A few websites mentioned his birth only being registered in Scotland if we don't officially register it from here.

It seems to me we should do both regardless of cost as we are moving back to the UK this fall on the Surinder Singh visa route and I want to make sure there are no hiccups with him having healthcare and being considered a full UK citizen.

Can anyone offer any advice? Many thanks in advance for your help.

[LilyLalilu]

Your child is already a British Citizen by descent from the moment he was born and you can directly apply for a passport for him.
I don't think you need to register his birth abroad to obtain a passport, just apply for the passport via post and send the Spanish birth certificate along with a certified translation into English. (And obviously his dad's documents as well)

I am not sure which advantages registering his birth abroad may have, some other members may be able to give you some more input regarding this

[Skylar1331]

A thousand thank yous! We'll just go for the passport then unless anyone has a good reason why we should register the birth?

[secret.simon]

Registration is the process by which a child who is not a British citizen by birth acquires British citizenship, typically on their parents meeting various requirements.

As your child is a British citizen by descent, registration is not only not required, to the best of my knowledge, it is not possible.

Just be aware that as the child is British by descent, s/he can not pass on the British citizenship if their children (your grandchildren) are born outside the UK.

[LilyLalilu]

I think what was meant wasn't registration for the purposes of citizenship but registration of a birth abroad.
I've asked a friend whose son was born abroad and she did register the birth with the UK government, but according to her there were no benefits of doing this, just more paperwork to do.

The government website says that if you register a birth with the UK authorities then:
- the birth will be recorded with the General Register Offices or at the National Records Office of Scotland
- you can order a consular birth registration certificate

As you've got the Spanish birth certificate and a translation already (which is sufficient to obtain a passport), I think there is no point in registering the birth with the UK authorities again.

[Skylar1331]

Perfect, so we will just do the passport then.

[Skylar1331]

When we apply for the passport we need the international birth certificate as part of our application. We have this and when I went to see the certified translator she said she couldn't finish translating it until we had it notorized in town. It has an official stamp on it already and the town notary told me they couldn't notarize it because they would only be authorizing the town registrar who signed it in the first place. They also said it wasn't necessary to even have the document translated as it was an international version that we were given. Does anyone have any experience with this? Having it notorized with an apostilla will cost us 50 EUR so if we can avoid the cost, we'd like to. I just don't want our application to be sent back if the supporting documentation isn't correct.