United Kingdom: the road to British citizenship

For many Germans, Britain is not an exotic destination but everyday life: London as a financial centre, world-famous universities, and English, a language you speak anyway. Since Brexit, however, it has been clear that your residence there no longer looks after itself. If you want to stay, you need a status. If you want to stay for sure, you need the passport. For the big picture of which countries make naturalisation through residence work well, see the overview Naturalisation abroad. The UK deserves a closer look, because the rules are clear, the fees are high and the road to permanent residence is getting longer.

How do you get British citizenship?

The legal basis is the British Nationality Act 1981. It knows no English, Scottish or Welsh citizenship, only British citizenship. For adults, the route there is called naturalisation. Alongside it there is registration, for children among others, and acquisition by birth or descent. Which door is open to you depends on your status and your family:

For the vast majority of Germans living in the UK, one of the first two rows is the right one. If you arrived by the end of 2020, you will usually have Settled Status or Pre-Settled Status under the EU Settlement Scheme. If you came later, you live there on a visa and first need Indefinite Leave to Remain, the permanent right to stay. The application itself is walked through step by step in the article on applying for British citizenship (in German). The question behind it matters at least as much: what the British passport gives you as a second citizenship, and how you use the years until you have it.

Requirements for British citizenship

For standard naturalisation, the Home Office sets out a short list. You must:

• be at least 18 years old,
• have lived in the United Kingdom for five years,
• have held Indefinite Leave to Remain, Indefinite Leave to Enter or Settled Status for at least twelve months,
• prove your knowledge of English, Welsh or Scottish Gaelic,
• have passed the Life in the UK Test,
• intend to keep living in the UK,
• be of "good character".

Each of these conditions is manageable on its own. If you know the deadlines precisely and plan your travel around them, you will get through without detours.

Five years in the country and your days abroad

The five years are counted backwards from the day the Home Office receives your application. On exactly that date five years earlier, you must have been physically present in the UK. If you happened to be on holiday then, your earliest possible application date moves back until the numbers work again. Applications made online count as received the same day; postal applications take longer.

On top of that there are two limits on absences:

If you travel a lot because you run a business in Germany or look after clients on the Continent, keep these numbers in view from day one. A travel log with your flight dates is the simplest insurance. How authorities count periods of residence and which evidence convinces them is covered in the article Proving your years of residence. You must also not have broken UK immigration law during this time.

English at B1 level

Germans have to prove their English. The list of countries whose nationals are exempt consists mainly of English-speaking states such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the USA and several Caribbean states; from the EU, only Ireland and Malta are on it. Germany is not.

There are two ways to prove it: with an approved English test (Secure English Language Test) at B1 or above, or with an academic degree taught in English. If your certificate at B1 or above was already accepted when you applied for permanent residence, it still counts, even if it has since expired. You then do not need a new test. From the age of 65 you are exempt from the language requirement, as you are with a long-term illness confirmed by a doctor.

The Life in the UK Test

The test covers British traditions and customs: 24 questions in 45 minutes, at a cost of £50. If you are 65 or older, you do not have to take it. What other countries require in terms of language, tests and oaths of allegiance is compared in the article Language, test, oath of allegiance.

Germans with Settled Status: the EU route to a British passport

If you moved to the UK as a German by the end of 2020, you had the chance to obtain a status under the EU Settlement Scheme. Settled Status is the counterpart to Indefinite Leave to Remain. For naturalisation, the same applies as with ILR: five years in the country and, as a rule, twelve months with Settled Status before you apply.

The route can be open with Pre-Settled Status too. The condition is that you lived in the UK as an EU citizen by 31 December 2020 and then spent five continuous years in the country, during which you worked, looked for work for up to three months, studied or supported yourself.

If you never applied to the EU Settlement Scheme, you are not shut out for good. For most people the deadline was 30 June 2021, but a late application is still possible if you can show reasonable grounds for the delay. How the status works, when it is converted and when it is lost is explained in the article on the EU Settlement Scheme (in German).

Why the status is not enough

Settled Status feels secure, but it is a permission, not a right. If you spend more than five years in a row outside the UK, it can lapse. With Indefinite Leave to Remain, more than two years abroad is already enough, after which you need a Returning Resident Visa to come back. So if you move to Dubai, Singapore or back to Germany for a few years, you put your right to stay at risk. With a British passport nothing lapses, however long you are away. That is precisely the difference between a permission and a right.

British citizenship through marriage

If you are married to a British citizen or in a civil partnership with one, the route gets shorter. Three years in the country before the application are then enough instead of five, and you do not have to wait an extra twelve months after obtaining permanent residence. In other words, you can apply straight away once you hold Indefinite Leave to Remain or Settled Status and meet the three years.

The other conditions stay the same: English at B1, the Life in the UK Test, good character, no more than 270 days abroad in three years and 90 days in the last twelve months. If your partner works abroad for the British government or an organisation closely linked to it, you may be exempt from the residence rules. How other countries handle the spouse route, and where it leads to a passport fastest, is shown in the article Citizenship by marriage.

British citizenship by birth and descent

The UK has no pure birthright citizenship. A child born in England does not automatically become British. The British Nationality Act makes it a condition that, at the time of birth, one parent is a British citizen or has settled in the country with permanent residence, "settled in the United Kingdom" in the words of the Act.

That has a welcome consequence for families: if your child is born after you have received Indefinite Leave to Remain or Settled Status, they are British from birth, even if you are still German yourself. If the child was born in the UK before that, they are entitled to registration as a British citizen as soon as you obtain permanent residence or the passport, as long as the child is still a minor. Registering a child costs £1,000.

What your passport means for your children abroad

A child born abroad is British if one parent is a British citizen "otherwise than by descent", in other words not British only by descent themselves. Naturalised British citizens belong to this group. This means: if you are naturalised and later have a child in Germany, Spain or Dubai, that child is British from birth, specifically British by descent. You pass the passport on without your child ever having to live in the UK. How your children grow up with two passports is explained in the article on children with dual citizenship.

Dual citizenship: Germany and the United Kingdom

The good news comes from both sides. The UK explicitly allows dual citizenship, and you do not have to apply for anything to keep it. And with its reform of nationality law, Germany has struck out the old ground for loss: since 27 June 2024 you no longer lose your German citizenship when you acquire a foreign one by application. A retention permit (Beibehaltungsgenehmigung) is no longer necessary.

After that you hold two full passports. With the German one you travel through Europe as an EU citizen; with the British one you live and work in the UK without a status, visa or deadlines. What two citizenships mean for tax, military service and dealing with authorities is set out in the article on dual citizenship for Germans. The British perspective is covered in the article on dual citizenship in the UK and Germany (in German).

How much does British citizenship cost?

The British passport is not cheap. The Home Office fees at a glance:

So the naturalisation application costs you £1,839. If you have Settled Status under the EU Settlement Scheme, you save the most expensive item, the application for Indefinite Leave to Remain. Biometrics, meaning fingerprints and a photo, cost nothing extra. On top of this comes the English test if you do not have a recognised degree, and at the end the British passport, which you apply for separately after naturalisation.

Processing time and ceremony

The Home Office usually decides within six months. If it takes longer, you are told in advance, and a faster decision is sometimes available for an extra fee. Once approved, you receive an invitation to a ceremony, which you must attend within three months. There you swear the oath of allegiance, or make an affirmation without reference to God if you prefer, and make a pledge. At the end of the ceremony you hold your certificate of naturalisation in your hands.

Earned Settlement: why the road to permanent residence is getting longer

The bottleneck on the way to a British passport is not naturalisation itself but the permanent residence that comes before it. This is exactly where London is stepping in. After a consultation with more than 200,000 responses, the principle now is that settlement has to be earned and no longer comes from time alone. The baseline for permanent residence rises from five to ten years. Those who make a lasting contribution to the British economy and society are to get there faster; those who break the law or immigration rules, more slowly or not at all.

Before implementation, the government intends to publish further technical guidance and a full impact assessment. For people already living in the country it plans transitional protection, for example for care workers and certain staff in health and education. What has been decided and what is still open is covered in the article on Earned Settlement (in German).

For you, this means: if you move to the UK on a visa today, you should no longer count on five years until permanent residence but rather on ten, plus the year until naturalisation. If you already have Settled Status or ILR, on the other hand, you are in the front row and should not put off your passport application.

Covering the wait

Ten years is a long time to live with only one passport and a residence status that an authority can grant you and take away again. That is why naturalisation and citizenship by investment are not an either-or. Naturalisation in the UK requires no investment, only fees and time, and in the end it is the stronger route. A passport from an investment programme anchored in law buys you the time until then and arrives in a few months rather than a decade. Why the two together make the most sense is explained in the article CBI and naturalisation. Which programmes exist and how they differ is set out in the programme overview and the comparison.

What the British passport gives you as a second passport

For Germans, the British passport is not about more visa-free travel, because your German passport already covers you extremely well. Its value lies elsewhere.

A right to stay that never lapses. With the passport, the UK is home, however long you live abroad. No status expires, no absence rule applies, and no reform of the settlement system affects you any more.

A second state that protects you. Two citizenships mean two embassies, two consulates and two states that feel responsible for you. If your German passport is lost or stolen abroad, or expires, you carry on travelling with the British one, entirely legally.

A passport for your children. Naturalised British citizens pass their citizenship on to children born abroad. A passport you acquire today carries on into the next generation.

Freedom outside the EU. The UK is no longer an EU member. If you deliberately spread your main home, your company or your assets across two legal systems, the British passport gives you a firm foothold outside Brussels.

Incidentally, if you are Irish or can become Irish, you do not need permanent residence for British naturalisation: Irish citizens need five years in the country, and the Home Office also waives the English requirement for them when they naturalise. How to get an Irish passport is explained in the article Ireland: naturalisation and the Irish passport.

How to take the road to a British passport

1. Clarify your status. Do you have Settled Status, Pre-Settled Status, a visa or already Indefinite Leave to Remain? That determines whether you can apply in months or in years.
2. Count your travel days. Make a list of every trip abroad in the last five years and check the limits of 450 and 90 days. Pay attention to the key date exactly five years before the application.
3. Get English and the Life in the UK Test done. You can gather both pieces of evidence well before applying, and an English certificate accepted for your ILR application still counts.
4. Apply online. It is best to apply online, because the application then counts as received the same day. You upload your documents or have them scanned at your biometrics appointment. Applying by post is also possible but takes longer.
5. Ceremony and passport. Once approved, the ceremony follows within three months, after which you apply for your British passport.
6. Cover the time until then. If you still have years ahead of you, think in parallel about a second passport that works straight away.

Naturalisation in the UK is not a gift, but it is a clear route you can plan. If you know the deadlines, keep your travel under control and cover the waiting time, you end up holding two strong passports.

Frequently asked questions