Have ILR, considering dual citizenship

My 2 children and I moved to the UK from Michigan in 2012 on a spousal visa.

Two years later, we upgraded to an Indefinite Leave to Remain Status.

My son has since relocated back to the States for university.

My daughter is currently 15 years old and we intend to stay here in England.

For those who have done it, what are the benefits to going for a British citizenship?

Would I be better off waiting until my daughter is 18 or doing it now while she is a minor? (Her biological father isn't the most cooperative.)

Thanks for the advice!

Advantages are:

1.  Being able to vote in elections
2.  Being able to move freely between the countries you hold citizenship for (as you know, if you leave the UK for two years, you would have to start the visa process over again.  Therefore unless your son were to relocate back to the UK permanently before his two years are up, he won't be able to return to the UK).
3.  Being free of changes by UKVI.  While for the most part ILR is "good enough" they do make subtle changes from time to time.  For example, currently you can travel if your ILR sticker is in an expired passport - however it is illegal to work if your ILR sticker is in an expired passport.  Therefore you need to pay over £300 for a Biometric Resident Permit to continue to legally work.
4.  They dramatically increase the fees for citizenship each year.  The sooner you apply, the cheaper it will be (currently just under £1,300 per application).

Thank you very much!

This summer will be two years for my son. He has not been back to the UK since he left. How much of a problem would that be?

Would he have to be present for me to include him in the application process?

If your son does not return within the 2 years his ILR will become invalid and he will no longer have the right to live in the UK.

If he wanted to return, he would have to start over again with the visa process... But as he is over 18 he would have to qualify for a work or student visa to come back.

However, if he does return before the two years are up he may not qualify for UK citizenship right away as he has not been in the UK (I'm not sure how the residency requirement works for child dependant ILR holders)


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Thank you very much.  I don't think he wants to return anyway. It's mainly my daughter and me that I'm concerned about.

I appreciate the advice.

My current passport is in my old last name.  Based on advice I've seen in this forum, I was just going to wait until it needed renewing to change it to my married name.
Would I be better off changing my name on my passport before pursuing UK citizenship or is that not an issue? I just REEEALLY do not want to hold on to my old last name any longer than I need to. Current passport is the only document that still has it.

Is your ILR a sticker in your passport with your old name or a BRP?  If it's a sticker, it's fine to keep it that way until you renew.  When you do renew your passport, you'll need to either apply for citizenship or a BRP, as your visa MUST match the name on your passport (if you chose to change your name).

You can do the name change in any order you want.  You could:

OPTION 1:
Change name on US passport.  Submit UK citizenship application in new name.  Receive citizenship and first UK passport in new name.

OPTION 2:
Apply UK citizenship in old name.  Receive citizenship and first UK passport in old name.  Change name on UK passport.

Personally, I'd do option 1, but either would work.

Yes, if your son does not return to the UK and resume permanent residence by this summer...  he won't have the option to return (well, it will be very very very hard).

I faced a similar decision with my daughter.  We could have included her on some paperwork with my wife and not paid £900 for her to get citizenship.  Then I thought, she's grown up here and considers the UK her home.  She's likely to want to live here for the rest of her life and probably assumes she can.  Without a UK passport, she stands a good chance of not being able to do that.  We decided to bite the bullet and pay for her passport.

Oh yeah, there's a slim chance that if she has a UK passport, when Brexit happens, they may allow UK citizens to buy a EU passport.  That could be very valuable .

If money is no object then I would get your son citizenship. You never know what the future holds and he may well want to work/live over here in the future. This will be his only opportunity to get citizenship unless he comes over on a works/student visa or marries a UKC.

Personally, I would jump on the opportunity before his ILR expires.

If money is no object then I would get your son citizenship. You never know what the future holds and he may well want to work/live over here in the future. This will be his only opportunity to get citizenship unless he comes over on a works/student visa or marries a UKC.

Personally, I would jump on the opportunity before his ILR expires.

He doesn't qualify unfortunately.  To qualify, he cannot have been out of the UK for more than 90 days in the past 12 months (and no more than 270 days in the past 3 years).  So, it's too late for him at this point.  He would need to move back to the UK permanently and restart the clock...

If money is no object then I would get your son citizenship. You never know what the future holds and he may well want to work/live over here in the future. This will be his only opportunity to get citizenship unless he comes over on a works/student visa or marries a UKC.

Personally, I would jump on the opportunity before his ILR expires.

The problem with this is that because he is over 18, he has to make his own application for citizenship and meet all the regular requirements... and because he has been living outside the UK, he is not going to be able to qualify this year.

If he was under 18, he could just apply for registration as British under form MN1, based on his mother applying at the same time... he would be entitled to citizenship purely because his parent is applying for it.

However, once he is over 18, he has to qualify in his own right and apply separately on Form AN. And in order to qualify he must show:
- he has held ILR for at least 12 months
- he was physically present in the UK exactly 5 years before his citizenship application date
- he has not been absent from the UK for more than 450 days in the last 5 years
- he has not been absent from the UK for more than 90 of those 450 days in the last 12 months before applying

If he has been back in the US for almost 2 years now and has not returned to the UK at all, he will definitely exceed the 450 days AND he will definitely exceed the 90 days in the last 12 months - there is some leeway on both of these, but the leeway only extends up to 180 days in the final 12 months, and he will likely have been gone for more like 300+ days.

So, I believe, if the OP's son wants to be able to qualify for UK citizenship he will need to:
- move back to the UK permanently before his ILR becomes invalid this summer
- live in the UK for up to 5 more years... however long it takes so he meets the residency requirement for citizenship

He doesn't qualify unfortunately.  To qualify, he cannot have been out of the UK for more than 90 days in the past 12 months (and no more than 270 days in the past 3 years).  So, it's too late for him at this point.  He would need to move back to the UK permanently and restart the clock...

Since he is over 18 and NOT married to a UK citizen, he would have to meet the 5-year residency requirements, not the 3-year ones (which are only for spouses of UK citizens).

Since he is over 18 and NOT married to a UK citizen, he would have to meet the 5-year residency requirements, not the 3-year ones (which are only for spouses of UK citizens).

Yeah, I wondered that just as I hit post...   

I faced a similar decision with my daughter.  We could have included her on some paperwork with my wife and not paid £900 for her to get citizenship. 

You might still have needed to pay that 900 to register your daughter as a British citizen, because PR is just part of the 2004 EU Directive on free movement and like all EU laws, will end on a Brexit. PR is EU rules and not part of the UK immigration laws.

Those who used EU laws to enter the UK and who have lived in the UK lawfully (kept to the EU free movement rules at all times) for 5 years, are filling in those forms for their DCPR or PRC as these are one of the requirements the UK has to apply for British citizenship.

Did you look to see if your wife had automatically achieved PR by the time your daughter was born (was a qualified person continuously for 5 years before your daughter's birth)? If she was, then the UK allow their children to be born British. That would save the 900 to register your daughter as a British citizen.

Did you look to see if your wife had automatically achieved PR by the time your daughter was born (was a qualified person continuously for 5 years before your daughter's birth)? If she was, then the UK allow their children to be born British. That would save the 900 to register your daughter as a British citizen.

Yes we did and we hadn't lived here for 5 years when she was born. 

Thanks for looking out for me!