Immigrationboards.com

I'm an EEA citizen who's been living and working in the UK over 6 years and married a non-EEA citizen.

I've got now the chance to apply for British citizenship as well but after a lot of research I've not read about a lot of EEA citizens taking this route, not sure if because it's too expensive or there are not too many advantages.

If you're an EEA citizen who decided to become British as well, have you seen any difference (other than voting) and do you think it's worth it even with such a high fee?

Or more generic, is there any advantage (or disadvantage) you can think of for getting this dual nationality for EEA citizens?

I think it is more emotional than any thing else.
- The rest of the family is naturalised / British from birth.
- You see your future in this country.
- You are a big supporter of England's football team.

Other reasons I can think of:
- Your EU passport fee is significant higher than the UK so you can get a return on citizenship "investment" in 30-40 years...
- if your home country has a similar concept to "citizenship by decent" and you want to provide your grandchildren another option in case they will not be entitled for your EU citizenship.
- You want to be officially allowed to moan about the government.

Assuming your country of original citizenship allows you to retain that citizenship on naturalisation, I can see few if any disadvantages (other than the cost of the application) in becoming a British citizen. As noted above, I think to large extent it's an emotional thing: I for one would want to be a citizen of the country I am living in and have thrown my lot in with, if possible.

Another thing to consider is the future: we should not assume (though we often do) that things will always be the same as they are now. It is currently easy for citizens of EEA countries to live and work in other EEA countries, but there is no guarantee that this will always be the case. As an analogous example: at the end of the Second World War it was easy for, say, a Canadian or an Australian to live in Britain but not so easy for, say, an Italian or German. Yet 30 years later the situation was basically reversed. If in 1945 you had suggested that this would be case it would have been thought ridiculous. Yet it proved to be so. Now, 30 years might seem a long time in the future, but in the course of a lifetime it is not necessarily so very long. And when things do change, they can sometimes change very rapidly.

I'm not saying that things will change in this regard, but there is really no certain knowledge that they won't. Just a thought.

I totally agree with the above posts, and can add a couple of more advantages of getting British citizenship:

- possibility of getting British consular help when abroad on holiday or business trip
- eligibility to vote in general elections in the UK
- possibility of standing for parliament elections. Even if you do not want to consider it for yourself, you still open this possibility to your children who will have British citizenship
- possibility of allowing your children to apply for jobs restricted to British Citizens only, e.g. there are some jobs at government agencies which are open to British citizens "whose at least one parent was also a British citizen" only
- ease of applying for / renewing UK passport (not so easy if you hold a foreign one and you have to go to the embassy each time!)

I was comparing the British citizenship with the Permanent Residency that we can get free through the EEA4.

I think that with the PR our children we'd be British as well and we should be allowed to life and work in the UK as long as we don't leave the country longer than 2 years.

So I can see the advantage of
* voting
* easyness of travelling (less VISAs for some countries)
* possibility at some point in time to leave the UK for longer than 2 years knowing that you could always come back

but with the disadvantage that things get a lot messier if at some point you reside outside of the UK, you're citizen of 2 countries living in a 3rd one and you are required to file tax returns in the country where you're working as resident and in the other 2 countries where you are not resident as well... :S

I think the chance of this happening is slim but it could happen and I was not sure about the overall hassle compared to a simple Permanent Residency

apriliapegaso28 wrote:but with the disadvantage that things get a lot messier if at some point you reside outside of the UK, you're citizen of 2 countries living in a 3rd one and you are required to file tax returns in the country where you're working as resident and in the other 2 countries where you are not resident as well... :S

The UK does not, as a matter of course, require non-resident citizens to file tax returns. (The USA does, but not the UK.)