Updated British Citizenship Criminality Good Character Guidance

1. The Good Character Requirement in British Nationality Law

The British Nationality Act (BNA 1981) contains a good character requirement, which applies to certain applications for registration as a British citizen and naturalisation as a British citizen for those over 10 years old at the date of application.

The good character requirement previously only applied to applications for British citizenship by naturalisation, but in 2010 this was extended to other routes to British citizenship.

2. Assessing Good Character in British Citizenship Applications

The BNA 1981 does not provide a definition of good character, and therefore each application must be considered individually. The decision maker must be satisfied that an applicant is of good character on the balance of probabilities. Applicants will therefore want to carefully consider information to include in their application to demonstrate they meet the requirement.