- Hi, my name's Tom Bradford.
I'm a barrister and partner
at the law firm Freeths.
This video is on how to naturalize
as a British citizen if you're an EU citizen
in the UK ahead of Brexit.
I have a separate video dealing with your options,
including how to apply for settled status.
This is part of a series
on settled status for EU nationals,
so do subscribe and click the notification bell
for updates as I release them.
Let's start with the chronology.
So you can see here, Brexit is on the 29th of March, 2019.
That's exit day, then there's a transition period
to the 31st of December, 2020, and then deadline
for applications for settled status
on the 30th of June, 2021.
Some, having seen my other video on a settled status,
may not wish to apply for settled status,
or pre-settled status, and may wish
to naturalize as a British citizen.
Clearly that's an alternative route.
If you do that, then as a British citizen
you will not need to apply
for settled status or pre-settled status.
Let's just have a look at the chronology in this context.
So I've got an example here about qualifying
to naturalize as a British citizen after five years.
It does depend on first applying for permanent residence.
So here, if you have spent five years in the UK
and can show that, for example, you were working
or doing one of the other qualifying activities
for five years and you can evidence that through,
for example, producing P60s from your employer,
then you will have accrued the right
to permanent residence, and you'll be able
to prove it through making an application
to certify that right, so the document in question is this.
It's a document certifying permanent residence.
This is simply confirmation of a pre-existing right.
It's not a permission-based document like a visa,
it's confirming a right that you already
have acquired under the EU treaty.
Now this, as I say, is a prerequisite
to then applying to naturalize as a British citizen,
and the key obstacle that people encounter
is that they require one year free
before applying to naturalize as British citizens.
So you've got to have one year where
you're not subject to immigration control,
or any restriction after the five years has been accrued.
You need that one year, and I've just
illustrated that here in this diagram.
I can see that this person accrued
the right of permanent residence at 2018,
and assuming that the associated
document was secured straight away,
then they're entitled to naturalize
as a British citizen one year later.
There's an important point to make here,
which is that, as I say, because it's a right
that accrues independently of any document
that you receive, you don't, for example,
receive any letter from the home office or anyone else,
when you accrue that right to permanent residence,
not withstanding its significance,
you need that one year free before applying.
This is really important, because for those
who now want to apply to naturalize
as a British citizen and secure their British passport
before Brexit, and I'll talk about who may want to do that,
they will want to argue that they accrued the right
of permanent residence more than one year ago,
that way they'll be able to show
that they have one year free before they
then apply to naturalise as British citizen.
There are various exceptions,
but I'm dealing here with the most common route.
And you can see here that this person accrues
the right towards the end of 2018,
but is then able to naturalize as a British citizen
at some point in 2019, so late 2019.
Now that will be after Brexit.
Now the people who may not want to leave it
that long are, for example, German nationals
where there's some doubt over whether Germany
will recognise dual citizenship post-Brexit,
and that's British citizen the general position
is that dual citizenship is recognized
and permissible, and in other words,
you don't have to relinquish your German passport
in respect of other EU member states.
So the current position is that you can hold
a British passport and a German passport,
because the UK is in the EU.
But post-Brexit, the UK will not be a member state
of the European Union, and therefore
that recognition will not be in place.
So many Germans, for example, have been applying
to secure their British passports pre-Brexit,
so that the current recognition
by Germany will follow through,
and that's thought to be the case
that if Germany recognizes it now,
then that will carry through,
whereas the general policy position
will stay post-Brexit so that you will
not necessarily be able to do
that as a German citizen after Brexit.
So if you're in that position,
then unless, and this is the exception
which I'll deal with in a separate video,
unless you're married to a British citizen
and need to show that you've been
in the UK for five years, that you've been doing
a qualifying activity for those five years,
or different qualifying activities,
like working or studying
with comprehensive sickness insurance,
and that you accrued that right more than one year ago.
If you do that, then as soon as your application
for permanent residence is granted,
you will be able to apply immediately
to naturalize as British citizen.
And I've shown that in this diagram.
So in this case, this person is able
to apply now to show that at the end of 2017,
they accrued the right to permanent residence,
and then as soon as the application is granted,
they're able to apply immediately
to naturalize as a British citizen.
So this person's residence was from 2013 to 2017,
and I'll just zoom in on that.
So you can see here 2013 to 2017,
they acquired the right to permanent residence in 2017,
and they're applying now to confirm
that that is the case, to secure this card,
the document certifying permanent residence.
This will be accompanied by a letter,
and will state the date
on which permanent residence accrued.
What I do for my clients is make representations
in the cover letter to the application,
and invite the home office to confirm
the date on which permanent residence was accrued,
because it's so important,
especially ahead of Brexit for the reasons I've described.
So if you do that, then it compels the home office
to state the date, rather than just the date
on which the application was determined,
the home office will confirm the date
on which permanent residence was accrued in the past,
rather than just, as I say, assuming that it's
the date on which you applied,
or indeed the date on which the application is determined.
And if that's done, then one year,
what you can do is as soon as that application
is determined then apply in 2019,
which will be the one year later
to naturalize as a British citizen.
Let me just zoom out and you can see that properly.
So here they'll be applying in January 2019
to naturalize as a British citizen.
So this is the position, as I say, of many EU nationalists,
not necessarily because of EU settlement scheme,
but because of their position in their home countries
on recognition of dual citizenship,
that they need to apply to naturalize
as a British citizen before Brexit.
And for that reason, because Brexit is less
than a year away now, they have to prove
that permanent residence was accrued
more than one year ago, so they can apply now.
Once the application is determined,
they can apply now to naturalize as British citizens.
Now one of the other points I wanna deal with
in this video is the residence requirements
to naturalize as a British citizen, as opposed
to the residence requirements for permanent residence.
This is really important because some people
approach this just on the basis
that the relevant residence requirements
are those applying to permanent residence,
not realizing that they're in fact much more restrictive
in respect of naturalizing as a British citizen.
So the residence requirements for permanent residence
for those five years I highlighted are
that you got to be in the UK for at least half of the year,
so for 180 days, and then you can have one year
of the five outside of the UK,
completely for unimportant reasons such as work or study.
That very broadly is the position.
I think this a matter in which, as for all
of these matters, you need to take legal advice.
If you want me to have a look
at the circumstances of your case,
please don't hesitate to give
me a call there on my details.
If you drop me an email, then happy to have a discussion.
So that's the general position
in relation to permanent residence,
but in relation to naturalizing,
you'll see here in green below
that there's 450-day total absence requirements,
but no more than 90 days in the last year.
So it's the equivalent, the 450 days breaks down
into the equivalent of 90 days a year,
although that's not necessarily
the way that it's calculated.
That's half of the permissible absence
for permanent residence.
So you can see here, if your objective
is permanent residence, that's one thing,
but if your ultimate objective is to naturalize,
then you need to have adequate residence planning
to make sure that no citizenship options is missed here,
or that you don't have to wait a longer period
of time before being able to apply
to naturalise as a British citizen,
if that's your objective.
So this is the document certifying permanent residence.
Just to return to the chronology,
those are the key points that I wanted
to make about applying to naturalize
as a British citizen ahead of Brexit.
If that's something that you want to do,
or indeed if you want to naturalize
as a British citizen after Brexit,
then don't hesitate to get in touch with me
if you want assistance with the application or advice.
I'm gonna be producing some more videos
on this subject, including on the deadline
for applying for settled status,
and on the application form,
so do subscribe if you want to receive those updates,
and click the notification bar if you want
to get them as soon as they're released.
Thanks very much for listening.