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Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 12:56 pm
by EEApartner
First of all, I wanna thank everyone to walk this journey with me. Today I finally realize my dream of being a British citizen :)

I have 2 more questions, hope these will be last until I get my passport!

1) I noticed I had to submit all my passports (I have 2 Hong Kong passports) when applying for British passport. Does it mean they will keep these for 6 weeks (according to their processing time) or will they send these back to me while considering my application?

2) If I do not apply for my British passport right away, I need to travel quite a bit for job, does it mean that I will have to carry the British citizen certificate with me instead of the ILR? It looks so huge to carry around! I was told by the UK custom control that they will delete my ILR and all relevant info once I am naturalized as citizen disregarding the fact if I actually apply a British passport or not?

Please kindly advise if you know.
Many thanks again to all of your help! I can't be happier today!

Re: Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 1:11 pm
by JamesBrodie
I don't believe you can travel on a naturalisation certificate (except maybe to Ireland). You'll need a passport.

Re: Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Wed Apr 15, 2015 1:33 pm
by fwd079
EEApartner wrote: I need to travel quite a bit for job
That is exactly what a Passport is for :) i.e. a travel document. Naturalisation certificate is the proof you have British Citizenship and passport is what you need if you are travelling abroad.

Re: Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:07 pm
by EEApartner
fwd079 wrote:
EEApartner wrote: I need to travel quite a bit for job
That is exactly what a Passport is for :) i.e. a travel document. Naturalisation certificate is the proof you have British Citizenship and passport is what you need if you are travelling abroad.
Thanks guys but what I mean is I will still be using my BNO passport and ILR as I don't have time to apply for my British passport.

Also second question, are they not going to send me back my other passports (BNO for example) until they have processed my passport application? That means I need to be stuck without any passports during 6 weeks estimated processing time?

Please kindly advise

Re: Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:37 pm
by wmazhar
For Travelling he has a BNO passport

Question here is will they allow him to enter UK with citizenship certificate?

I think passport office will send your documents back within 10,15 days

Re: Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 3:46 pm
by cs95tdg
Question here is will they allow him to enter UK with citizenship certificate?
I believe they will, so long as the BNO passport is available & is still valid for travel (e.g. Not cancelled). It may just take longer for immigration staff to verify at port of entry along with possibly some questions to the OP to clarify why he has not obtained a British passport yet.

One additional point to note is that they now do exit checks when leaving the UK, so they may well need to see the naturalisation certificate at point of exit as well - though I'm not sure about this. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/oper ... xit-checks

Re: Thank you all and about passport and certificate

Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:40 pm
by fwd079
EEApartner wrote: Thanks guys but what I mean is I will still be using my BNO passport and ILR as I don't have time to apply for my British passport.

Also second question, are they not going to send me back my other passports (BNO for example) until they have processed my passport application? That means I need to be stuck without any passports during 6 weeks estimated processing time?

Please kindly advise
Six weeks is not the usual time, its normally less than that, if you use Check & Send its normally within a month.

My personal experience was quite swift, I applied through Check & Send and within three working days I received a letter for interview, which I booked and attended the very next day and received my passport with three working days of that, totalling I think it was 10-12 working days.