Does the US even allow dual citizenship? My brother tells me otherwise. He is a US citizen, born and raised. His wife was born in Copenhagen. Their US born daughter carries both a US and Danish passport. He was told however when their daughter reaches 18 yrs old she will have to choose one or the other as the US does not recognize dual citizenship.

Can anyone prove or disprove this? This obviously goes into my weighting of getting a UK passport if infact the US doens't observe dual citizenship.

Thanks
Ian

This is correct. At age eighteen an American citizen must choose between their foreign citizenship or that of the U.S.

Obviously, most people will choose to retain their U.S. citizenship. However, even if you do not carry a valid British passport, you will never lose your British citizenship. The expired passport can be used as evidence of your right to live and work in the E.U.

Thanks for the info. I guess I'm still a little confused by your UK citizenship comment. So even if I "tell" the US that I let my UK passport expire, I still will be a British citizen? I guess the bottom line is should I be applying for a UK passport knowing it is illegal to carry both a US and UK passport.

You do not lose U.S. citizenship unless you really wnt to and you do not need to chsoose one when you turn 18.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_p.../cis_1753.html

You may want to take advice about the position of families of members of armed forces stationed in the UK under NATO agreements. There are special provisions about them but I can't remember them off the top of my head. But if the normal law applied to you then, you ought to have been in a position to acquire British citizenship when it came into existence on 1 January 1983.You might have been born a dual national, in which case you would probably keep both UK and US as long as you complied with the US' requirements on this. (The UK doesn't care how many countries you're a citizen of.)If you are born illegitimate, you may still have a claim to British citizenship through your mother even if you can't claim it through your father. So the situation is not quite as simple as you make out. Also, as has already been said, the mere fact of your parents' birth in the UK is not by itself enough either to give you British citizenship or a right to register for it.

And applying for a passport is no good unless you can demonstrate that you are already a British citizen. If you have to register first, you won't get a British passport until that process is complete.I don't think this is right. As I understand the US system, someone who is born a dual national is entitled to keep that. You have to continue to satisfy the US' requirements in relation to travel, etc. but you don't have to choose. Some other countries do make you choose, but not the US.

There always seemed to me to be one very good reason to reject US citizenship, anyway, if one had the choice and it wasn't much other use: you'd escape the worldwide tax!

Why is this obvious?

This could well be a Danish rule rather than a US one. I know that in a number of European countries the law is that children may have dual nationality but adults must choose one or the other - I know this is the case in Germany where (with some exceptions) the age limit for dual nationality is 23, and I understand other countries have similar rules.

this is not true for germany anymore. I got double nationality french-german
last year by adopting french nationality. you have to ask authorities to keep german nationality before you choose a new one. it works. works in the other way, too.

Some of the rules can be interpreted very differently. For example, if you are female, of age approximately 25 to 45 with no children and don't want children in the future, above 5 foot 6, possess you own hair and teeth, do not break mirrors with your looks, have a sense of humour and understand FTers, then a British passport could be yours via what may be referred to as the PM route.

I may have the odd single female friend out there as well

Good luck in your strife to become a subject of Her Britannic Majesty QE II gawd bless you ma'am.

You have to distinguish between people who are born dual nationals, but are merely applying for a passport of the "other" country in an "old" age, and people who are actually applying for another nationality.

Denmark does not allow dual nationality as a rule. This means that you have to surrender your existing nationality if you want to apply for Danish nationality, but Danish nationals can apply for other nationalities without losing Danish nationality, subject to the foreign country's rules. However if you are born with dual nationality - eg. if you have parents of different nationalities - you keep Danish nationality for life, on condition that you are born in Denmark or - if born abroad - that you have lived at least one year in Denmark before you reach 22 years.

As I mentioned in my prior post the US only started allowing dual citizenship a few years ago (3 ?). My son was born in England but had US citizenship as his father was us, and yes, at 18 he had to choose (or 21, forget exactly) but that was before the change. I don't know that it would even be an issue now. I do believe that before the change my UK passport would have been taken.

South Africa has also recently started allowing people to acquire a second nationality, but requires an application to be made for permission to do so. And Australia changed its law a few years ago that simply lifted the bar on acquiring a second nationality, and I don't think any application for permission is needed.

In the middle of all this seriousness, I think it's time for an anecdote about dual nationality, told by Bill Bryson:-

An academic and his family, who had lived in the US for some years returned to the UK. All but their youngest child, aged 4 years, had UK passports. That child had only a US passport but no visa to live in the UK, and hadn't been registered as British.

Asked by the immigration officer, �how long will you be staying in the UK?�, the academic's truthful answer is one year.

�What about the American child?� queries the officer. Without a visa, this child can only enter as a visitor, staying for a maximum of 6 months. After some discussion the officer says he will have to discuss this with his supervisor.

Returning, he says to the academic, �My supervisor will come and ask you how long the child will be staying in the UK. When he does, say two weeks.�

The supervisor duly comes over and asks the question. The academic duly gives the answer "Two weeks".

�That�s OK then,� he says, stamping the passport. Almost as an afterthought he remarks, �While you�re in the UK, it wouldn�t be a bad idea to get the child registered, just in case you decide to stay longer.�

If applying for American citizenship, is one forced to give up their current citizenship? My brother is married to an American, has permanent residency, his son is in the process of becoming a dual citizen, I assume he will apply for citizenship when he has qualified. But I can't imagine him giving up his Australian citizenship.

goodo

Don't worry GWB will be out of office by 2009 so if you can just hold on till then. Of course he may be succeeded by Jeb so best have a Plan B ready as per CluebyFour's suggestion. www.loopylove.co.uk?

Yeah, I guess I'll have to start taking advantage of the new licensing laws for pubs in London. Maybe that's the solution... @:-)