Son born in Spain, will have Spanish passport soon — but stuck on his British passport due to a deceased grandparent's documents. Can he travel to the UK on an ETA in the meantime?
Long-time lurker, first-time poster — hoping some of you have hit this specific wall before.
Some background: we live in the UK. My wife and I had our son in Spain (long story, nothing dramatic, just where we were living at the time), and he's shortly going to have a Spanish passport through her side. Our daughter, by contrast, was born here in the UK and already has her British passport — no issues at all.
For our son, HMPO have written back asking for a pile of biographical details about my late mother (his paternal grandmother) — full name, date/place of birth, nationality, marriage details, etc. — to establish the chain of how my own citizenship was acquired, since apparently that determines whether it transmits automatically to a child born abroad. Problem is, she passed away some years ago and I genuinely don't have access to some of what they're asking for. I'm digging through old paperwork and considering ordering historical records, but it's slow going and clearly isn't resolving itself before we next need to travel.
So the practical question: in the meantime, can he travel to the UK on his Spanish passport using an ETA, given he's a British citizen's child even though the passport itself isn't sorted yet?
From what I've read, the answer seems to be yes for now — every non-British/non-Irish passport holder (EU nationals included, babies and children included) needs their own ETA to travel to/enter the UK as things currently stand, and there's no exemption just because a parent is British or a sibling already has a British passport. So as long as he's travelling on the Spanish passport, he'd need an ETA on that passport like any other Spanish national, separate from whatever happens with his British application.
Obviously if/when he's confirmed as British, that changes — dual British citizens can't use an ETA at all and are expected to travel on a British passport (or equivalent proof of right of abode) instead. So this feels like a temporary workaround rather than a long-term plan, and I don't want to accidentally lock him into "travelling as a foreign national" long-term if it complicates the British application somehow.
Has anyone been through the "prove your late parent's/grandparent's status" saga with HMPO? Specifically curious about:
- How people sourced historical UK immigration/settlement records for a deceased relative
- Whether travelling on the ETA in the interim caused any friction later
- Realistic timelines once you've actually submitted everything
Thanks in advance — this sub has been a goldmine for untangling all of this.