The application to register a child as a British citizen requires payment of a fee of £1,214, which is charged by the Home Office to consider the application.

After submitting the application, an appointment must be made at the Visa Application Centre, where the child’s biometrics will be collected (a facial photograph, and fingerprints where they are over 6 years old). The appointment is made at one of the centres closest to the applicant’s home address. Depending on venue, date and time, appointments currently cost between £139 and £249. The higher cost is charged by certain centres for an appointment on certain dates and times. A careful search among the booking fees will most likely lead to paying the lower rate of £139. Sometimes this may involve traveling a longer distance, to a more distant centre, or postponing the procedure for few days or weeks.

To these costs can be added the fee charged by an immigration lawyer hired to deal with the application. The fees of these professionals differ, obviously. My fee to manage such an application from A to Z is £500. My recommendation is to contract the qualified services of a specialist, in order to avoid the situation in which, not observing some legal requirements or not bringing all the required evidence, you will receive a refusal. If the application is refused, the fees paid may be lost, which is obviously not desirable. By using an accredited specialist to provide immigration and citizenship legal advice, the chances of success are optimised, and the costs of the advice are reduced compared to the benefits obtained.

Summarising the above, the estimated budget of an application to register a child as a British citizen is £1,853.

I am here to help

If you want to register your child as a British citizen and need specialist advice, feel free to contact me. Please note that I am an accredited immigration adviser, not an employee of the UK Visas and Immigration. I charge fees for the advice provided.