I'm 17 and I am fully Aussie I've always lived here and nobody in my family (including myself) has wee been over to the UK. My dad and mum aren't British either :)
I just want to visit the UK next year because next year I will have finished school an I want to take a year to focus on me and my goals:)
Anyway thanks in advance x
"I just want to visit the UK next year" - that's easy, get an Aussie passport and the UK will let you in for up to 6 months as long as you aren't planning on working there. You do NOT need a British one.
Now for the explanation. According to the British Nationality Act 1981, you are British if you are born in the UK to at least one parent who is "settled" there (basically they are British or have permanent residence), or if you were born anywhere else to at least one parent who is British by birth. Therefore you are not British and can't have a British passport. You are very firmly Australian.
Most countries are like this - I cannot have an Australian passport because neither I nor my parents' generation have any connection to Australia. There are some countries where citizenship can pass down more generations but for most, that's how it goes.
So to get a British passport, you need to naturalise as a British citizen, which will mean living in the UK for 5 years, get Indefinite Leave to Remain, stay another year and then apply to be naturalised. The difficulty with that is getting a visa to live here for that long, which you won't get unless you can do a job Britain really needs. (It's actually for 2 years to start with, then you renew it.)
As an Aussie, there are a couple of things we do for our Commonwealth cousins you could look into if you want to do more than play tourist. If you have a British-born grandparent, and can prove it with a chain of birth and marriage certificates showing how you are descended from that person, then as a citizen of a Commonwealth country you are eligible for a UK ancestry visa. This allows you to live in the UK for 5 years and get ILR at the end of it. And British citizenship a year later if you like.
Or to stay for up to 2 years, you can get a Tier 5 (Youth Mobility Scheme) visa, which will allow you to live and work in the UK for that long.
But if you just want to visit the UK for a short while and look around, come over and bring your Australian passport! You don't need a British visa as you are Australian, but I would also bring proof of your return ticket and that you have enough money to keep you going for however long you want to stay, so UK immigration can see if they ask that you will definitely go home afterwards and won't be wanting to get a job illegally.
The point is that you don't need a country's passport to be able to visit there, you need your OWN country's passport. Is that where the confusion is? A passport, really, is just photo ID that also shows what country you're from. To then actually use it to go to another country, check with that country's embassy or High Commission in Australia whether you need a visa. If the intention is to move there to live, you will, but just to visit, you might not.
What a visa does is that it enables the other country to check you out first. You apply to their embassy or High Commission for a visa, and if they say yes, they put a visa in your passport. This is a stamp or sticker that they put on one of the blank pages (that's why passports have lots of blank pages in them!) and then when you actually get there, the immigration officer can see you've been approved.
You can't. (Obviously.) Only British citizens can get British passports, and you're not a British citizen.
If you wanted to visit the UK, you'd be doing so as an Australian citizen. You could spend up to 6 months in the UK as a tourist (no work), or you could look into the working holiday visa option to enable you to stay for longer and work there.
You need to apply for an Australian passport not a British Passport
Why do you think you need a British passport to visit Britain? You can visit Britain using an Australian passport. Which is the only one you'll get.
You can't. Only British citizens can have UK passports, and you are not a British citizen. Why not use an Australian passport?
How does someone who's not an Aussie, who's parents are not Aussie and who has never been to AUS get an Aussie passport?
That's the same way you get a British passport or any country's passport.
You can't.
Australian citizens can visit the UK for up to six months without a visa. However, the Immigration Officer will question you very closely when they realize you plan to stay longer than for a normal holiday of a month or so, and they can deny entry if they are not satisfied with the answer.
If you want to stay a year then better would be to either attend university on a student visa or get a Working Holiday visa.
http://www.visabureau.com/uk/youth-mobil...
It's easy to visit the UK with an Australian passport. You can stay for several without needing a visa. The same applies to all of the EU. Welcome and enjoy!
You cant
