Our Plan B

United Kingdom - British Citizenship

The introduction of legislation clause 4L is significant for claiming British Citizenship by Descent. The clause allows for several types of applications that were previously not allowed due to gender discrimination. The maternal line for grandmothers and mothers are now allowed to pass on citizenship without discrimination. Applicants may use historical Citizenship Law to their favour and now apply the same rights a male would have for their female ancestry. This is great news for many South Africans, and other previous British colonies who have British ancestry.

Our Plan B is offering a special research service to determine your eligibility based on information that you provide. Click on the below link to view the British Citizenship Research and Eligibility Service.

British Citizenship by Descent for those who are eligible to claim a British Passport through a parent being British before their birth. This is classified as a standard route for citizenship compared to other possible routes, making the claim for your British Citizenship by Descent claim fairly easy.

You can do so if the following criteria apply to you:

• You have a parent born in the UK before 1 Jan 1983;

• You have a parent born in the UK after 1 Jan 1983;

• One of your parents is British but born outside of the UK;

• One of your parents Naturalised in the UK before your birth; and

• You are under 18 with a British parent.

British Citizenship by Double Descent for those who are able to claim a British Passport through a grandparent or sometimes a great-grandparent. There are provisions in law allowing this type of claim if you fit one of the following criteria especially for those individuals born between 1949 and 1988 and even more so for those born in South Africa between 1962 and 1988.

Other types applications involve when a parent or even grandparent is born in a different country to where you were born. Or if your parent or grandparent was born in a previous colony but left before the country obtained independence. i.e. Mauritius, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zambia, Kenya.

Often, British Citizenship by Double Descent is a non-standard route for citizenship. There are numerous criteria to be met and often require legal professional assistance for your individual case:

• You (parent or grandparent) born in former British territory;

• You (parent or grandparent) registered as British Citizen;

• Parent or grandparent in Crown Service; and

• Parents married before 1949.

Every British citizen is either a British Citizen Otherwise than by Descent or a British citizen by descent. This difference is important because the type of citizenship people have decides the way in which they can pass British citizenship on to their children who were born outside the United Kingdom. A British citizen otherwise than by descent person, can automatically pass on British citizenship to a child born outside the UK.

You can be a British Citizen otherwise than by descent by:

• Birth;

• Registration;

• Naturalisation; and

• Adoption.