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I recently attended my citizenship ceremony but didn't know I cannot travel outside until I get my first british passport. Due to my personal situation I cannot postpone my trips.

My question is: Can I travel outside the UK, and send my passport and naturalisation certificate to my friend's address who can then post them to the home office on my behalf?

Is it a requirement that I have to be in the UK to post my documents?

Kind regards

There are no restrictions per-se on travelling outside after attending your citizenship ceremony. The only challenge you will face is when coming back, if you are a visa national and need to have an ETA when entering the UK. Airlines may not allow you to board without being satisfied you will be allowed entry by border force.

Depending on how quick the Home Office update your status, your ILR may show as cancelled shortly after you attend the citizenship ceremony. Unlike before when physical ILR cards were used to prove permission to enter, it was common to fly out after applying for naturalisation/ceremony as you still had something to validate your entry back. Not as straight forward right now.

Regarding your query of leaving the documents with someone to post - not practical. For the first passport, you need to send BOTH, your original citizenship certificate AND your current passport. Not sure how you plan to get round that. Unless you post it back to UK and hope it gets back well before your intended date of return. In which case, above issue on return won't be a problem.

I plan to send my current passport and naturalisation certificate to a friend of mine living in the UK who can post it to Home Office on my behalf.

Once he receives the new and the old passport I will ask him to send both of them back to me. When I return back to the UK, I'll use the British passport to enter to the country.

My concern is that if I'm physically outside the UK while my first British passport is being processed in the UK, would this be an issue?

Did you naturalise under section 6(1) or 6(2)? If it's the former, you MUST apply from within the country, or your future intentions may be called into question and you may even get your citizenship revoked. How far in the future are your trips?

Thanks for the advice. I decided to postpone my trips.

Are there any examples of this being an issue posted by a member in this forum?

I know there is at least one but can't find it at the moment. you decide yourself if it's worth the risk.