Should we apply for children's Australian citizenship before or after Partner visa application?

[GB1978]

I'm in the process of preparing to apply for my Partner visa for Australia. My wife is Australian and we have two young children who were born in England.

We are looking to apply for Australia citizenship for our two children.

Is there a preferred order for how this should be done - should we apply for their citizenship, get that confirmed and then lodge my partner application or can they be done in parallel?

We need to try and be in Australia by next March as that is when my wife's UK visa is due to expire so keen to ensure we organise ourselves in the best way.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

[rammygirl]

They are separate applications do them in parallel. The children will also need Australian passports once they have their citizenship certificates.

are you certain you do not want to get UK citizenship for your wife before you leave?  Check out the moving to the UK threads to see the problems of getting partner visas for the UK.  Your kids are dual citizens and ideally you both should be too, you never know what the future can bring.

 

 

[wrussell]

I usually advise clients in the circumstances you have described  to apply for citizenship by descent for children as their first step. You can make the applicable applications in parallel. and with the upcoming changes this might be your best strategy.

This is not a considered professional opinion.

[Guest]

I always think when a child can hold dual nationalities its good to get that side of things sorted asap after a child is born so its in place regardless.  

I'd say get the citizenship and passports done first but that is me and as Westly has said above, changes could be coming soon and so it may be better to lodge for the visa and get going on the Aus citizenship at the same time. I'd talk to an agent perhaps to make sure you understand the possible changes coming and then decide which way you want to proceed. 

The process for applying for citizenship by descent is pretty straightforward (unless they've changed it recently). Apply for the citizenship by descent, then once that is obtained, its the Aus parent making an appointment to attend the interview for the kids Aus passports at the Aus High Commission (a day trip to London for the Aus parent usually). Your Aus passport and birth certificate are needed for the process somewhere I seem to recall. Then the passports are processed and sent out. When we did our's it took about 6 weeks all up from when husband sent off the citizenship application to the passport arriving. It could be a longer wait time these days though, not sure. 

When you lodge the partner visa IIRC you'd not list the kids as migrating on the application and will need to provide evidence with the application that they have Aus citizenship by descent and their Aus passports to enable them to enter Aus. Also their full birth certs, naming both parents. So you do need to get organised and get the citizenship by descent going asap I'd think.

 

 

 

 

[Wonderingaloud]

Slightly off topic I’m sorry- I know July brings a lot of changes to visas and skills lists etc. What changes are suspected with regards to citizenship? I thought there was a massive overhaul maybe 2 years ago?

[Jon the Hat]

I was in the same position and did them in parallel.  The citizenship by descent from the UK took 3 weeks for one and 4 for the other for some reason.  For Passports you have to make an appointment to visit the Australian High Commission in person (One parent not kids unless they are over 16) and that took about a month to get the appointment, and another 3 weeks for the passports to arrive. 

Once I had the citizenship certificates I added them to my 309/100 application and also notified a change of circumstance form as I had said they were not citizens, and now they are.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Wonderingaloud said:

Slightly off topic I’m sorry- I know July brings a lot of changes to visas and skills lists etc. What changes are suspected with regards to citizenship? I thought there was a massive overhaul maybe 2 years ago?

Suggest you ask about citizenship changes elsewhere. We do have an active thread on it already. 

[GB1978]

Thanks for your replies, I hadn't appreciated the incoming changes to the Partner Visa and so it sounds like it may be best to move forward with both the visa and kids citizenship in parallel.

In terms of the visa changes, if we submit our application by the end of June does it follow the existing process? Apologies if I missed another thread on this, I did try and find one!

Thanks again!

[Guest]

16 hours ago, GB1978 said:

Thanks for your replies, I hadn't appreciated the incoming changes to the Partner Visa and so it sounds like it may be best to move forward with both the visa and kids citizenship in parallel.

In terms of the visa changes, if we submit our application by the end of June does it follow the existing process? Apologies if I missed another thread on this, I did try and find one!

Thanks again!

AFAIK, yes it will follow the existing process that you lodged under. 

It could be that there is more responsibility on the sponsor for the partner visa application or the price goes up (its already bloody expensive anyways). I can't recall what changes are meant to be afoot tbh. 

I'd get cracking on the citizenship by descent now so you have that head start on it all. Hopefully it will be processing by the time you are ready to lodge at the end of June and you can submit it when it comes through and then the kids Aus passport info at a later date once those are sorted.