British Citizenship By Descent: Eligibility And Applications

In many cases, British citizenship can be passed from a parent to their child, even if the child was born outside the UK. This is known as British citizenship by descent.

However, for many years, not everyone was treated equally. In certain circumstances, British fathers were able to pass on their British citizenship to children born overseas, while British mothers could not. Likewise, some children born to unmarried parents were treated differently under the law and were unable to claim British citizenship, even though they would have been eligible had their parents been married.

As a result, many people missed out on British citizenship through no fault of their own.

To address these issues, the UK Government introduced a legal route that allows eligible individuals to apply for the British citizenship they would have received if the law had treated everyone equally.