How to Become a British Citizen

Just over 147,000 people applied for British citizenship in the year ending September 2024. British citizenship marks the end of a long journey to settlement in the UK.

In this article, our UK Immigration Lawyers map out how to become a British citizen.

UK Online and London-Based British Citizenship Lawyers  

For British citizenship advice call London-based OTS Solicitors on 0203 959 9123 or contact us online.

Our lawyers speak Arabic, Armenian, Farsi, French/Mauritian Creole, Spanish, Tamil Tagalog/Ilonggo, Urdu/Punjabi.

The three steps to British citizenship

There are three steps to British citizenship:

1. UK entry
2. Indefinite Leave to Remain application or settled status
3. British citizenship application

No one can jump straight into an application for Indefinite Leave to Remain and nor can you jump from visa to British citizenship without first securing ILR or settled status.

UK entry can be broken down into:

1. Entry on a visa
2. Entry clearance, such as an EU national who arrived before Brexit and who acquired settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme
3. Refugee status

The entry process isn’t always straightforward. For example:

• You may have entered the UK on a visa that doesn’t lead to settlement, such as a Student Visa or Graduate Visa. You then need to switch to a visa where your time spent in the UK counts towards meeting the residence requirement for an Indefinite Leave to Remain application
• Your entry and time spent in the UK may not count towards your residence requirement if you spend too long overseas as this may breach the continuous residence rules

The ten-stage process to become a British citizen

The application process for British citizenship should ideally start upon your arrival in the UK to ensure that your British Citizenship Solicitors can smoothly apply for naturalisation as soon as you meet the eligibility criteria.

The ten British citizenship application steps are:

1. Familiarise yourself with the immigration rules relevant to your Work Visa, Family Visa or Business Visa to ensure that you don’t inadvertently breach your visa conditions placing a future naturalisation application at risk
2. Understand the residence requirements and absence thresholds for your UK settlement application. If you are spending long periods outside the UK then you should keep records
3. Take British citizenship legal advice - a few months before you can apply for citizenship speak to a UK Settlement Lawyer about the paperwork you need to start to collate. For example, your passport or Biometric Residence Permit, evidence of UK residence, English language test certificate and Life in the UK test
4. Referees – you need two referees for your citizenship application. Your UK Immigration Lawyer will explain the referee criteria set by the Home Office
5. Apply online - your British citizenship Solicitor completes the nationality application online. This is Form AN. The application, supporting documents and application fee are submitted to the Home Office
6. Biometric appointment - you book and go to a biometric appointment at your local UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services (UKVCAS) centre
7. Interview - if required by the Home Office you may be invited for an interview – but this is not normally required
8. Letter from the Home Office - if the Home Office writes to you to say your application will be granted you will be invited to attend a citizenship ceremony. You will need to book your attendance at a ceremony within three months. The approval letter does not grant you citizenship as that only comes through the completion of the citizenship ceremony
9. Ceremony - attendance at the citizenship ceremony where you will need to take an oath and receive your certificate
10. Passport application - if you wish to travel overseas, you can apply for a British passport

Who can become a British citizen?

You can apply for British citizenship if you meet these criteria:

1. You are aged at least 18
2. You meet the relevant residence requirement to your nationality application route
3. You have held Indefinite Leave to Remain status for at least 12 months or have settled status
4. You meet the good character requirement
5. You have passed the English language test
6. You have passed the Life in the UK (also known as the British Citizenship Test)
7. You intend to live in the UK if granted citizenship

If children under 18 want to acquire British citizenship they can register for citizenship.

The residence requirement for British citizenship

To qualify for citizenship, you must have lived in the UK for at least five years, but this is reduced to three years if you are married to a British citizen.

There is also a staged process for a British citizenship application as most applicants need to have held Indefinite Leave to Remain or settled status for at least 12 months before making your application. The 12-month rule doesn’t apply if the applicant is married to a British citizen.

The residence requirement specifies how long an applicant can spend outside the UK during either the three or five-year period. These are referred to as the absence thresholds for naturalisation. The rules say:

• You must not have been outside the UK for more than 90 days in the last 12 months
• You must not have spent more than 450 days outside the UK in the last five years if applying under the five-year residence requirement or 270 days if applying under the route of having married a British citizen

Who can't become a British citizen?

When you apply for your first visa, you should ask what rules you must follow to be eligible to apply for British citizenship. If you follow the rules, you should eventually be eligible to apply for British nationality.

You can't become a British citizen if you don’t meet:

• The residence requirement
• The good character requirement

Put simply, you must put your time in and stay out of trouble with the police and authorities, such as the Home Office and HMRC.

If you are worried about whether you or your teenage child will qualify for citizenship, it is best to speak to a British Citizenship Lawyer in London. They can provide specialist British citizenship legal advice, answer your questions on the circumstances in which Home Office officials can be asked to exercise discretion and explain what you or a family member needs to do to obtain UK settlement.

The statistics on British citizenship

There were 147,053 successful applications for British citizenship in the UK in the year ending September 2024. If you are at the start of your journey to British citizenship you will want to know the route people took to secure British nationality. The 147,053 applications are broken down into:

• Around 36% of nationality applicants came to the UK on Work Visas, mainly the Skilled Worker Visa
• Roughly 28% of nationality applicants came to the UK on Family Visas
• About 24% of nationality applicants came to the UK as refugees or were granted refugee status

Other backgrounds to UK settlement include long residence or discretionary leave. These routes accounted for 16,188 applications in the year ending September 2024.

If you want to discover more about how people move from visa applicants to British citizens, the latest Home Office information and statistics can be found here.

Why choose OTS Solicitors as your Nationality Lawyers?

At OTS Solicitors our British Citizenship Lawyers pride ourselves on our attention to detail. We will communicate with you at every stage of the naturalisation application process. We are recommended in the Legal 500 for the quality of our immigration services.

Speak to our British Citizenship and Nationality Lawyers in London now

For advice on a British citizenship application, call us on 0203 959 9123 to make an appointment at our offices in London or for a phone, Zoom, or Skype consultation.

For expert help contact our Solicitors for British Citizenship.

Our lawyers speak Arabic, Armenian, Farsi, French/Mauritian Creole, Spanish, Tamil Tagalog/Ilonggo, Urdu/Punjabi.

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