The Home Office today published a new collection of guidance documents used by the UK Visas and Immigration service when deciding applications for British nationality. These seem to have replaced the Nationality Instructions with, it seems, no guidance on what has been carried over, changed or dropped from the Nationality Instructions:

Section 1: Requirements and considerations common to all types of British nationality

This section contains information on common aspects of nationality policy and processes that apply to the applications for all types of British nationality.

Adoption: nationality policy guidance

Assessing ordinary residence: nationality policy guidance

Domicile: nationality policy guidance

British nationals: nationality policy guidance

Deprivation and nullity of British citizenship: nationality policy guidance

Full capacity requirement: nationality policy guidance

Good character: nationality policy guidance

Identity: nationality policy guidance

Renunciation of all types of British nationality: nationality policy guidance

Surrogacy: nationality policy guidance

Children of unmarried parents: nationality procedure guidance

Level of decision making: nationality procedure guidance

Passports (handling): nationality procedure guidance

Priority treatment requests: nationality procedure guidance

Section 2: British citizenship

This section contains guidance on how to consider an application to naturalise, or register as a British citizen.

Automatic acquisition: nationality policy guidance

British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1997: nationality policy guidance

Children of British parents: nationality policy guidance

Children: nationality policy guidance

Renunciation of British citizenship: nationality policy guidance

Naturalisation as a British citizen by discretion: nationality policy guidance

Other British nationals: nationality policy guidance

Stateless persons: nationality policy guidance

Section 3: Right of Abode

This section contains guidance on how to consider whether an individual has the right of abode in the UK.

Right of abode: nationality policy guidance

Section 4: British overseas territories citizens (BOTC)

This section contains guidance on how to consider an application to naturalise or register as a British overseas territories citizen.

Automatic acquisition – BOTC: nationality policy guidance

British overseas territories citizens – descent: nationality policy guidance

Naturalisation as a BOTC: nationality policy guidance

Registration as a BOTC – children: nationality policy guidance

Registration as a BOTC – following renunciation: nationality policy guidance

Registration as a BOTC – stateless: nationality policy guidance

Section 5: British overseas citizens

This section contains guidance on how to consider an application to naturalise or register as a British overseas citizen.

British overseas citizens: nationality policy guidance

Section 6: British subjects

This section contains guidance on British subject status.

British subjects: nationality policy guidance

Section 7: British nationals overseas

This section contains guidance on British nationals overseas.

British nationals (overseas): nationality policy guidance

Section 8: British protected persons

This section contains guidance on British protected persons.

British protected persons: nationality policy guidance

These documents are an essential read for anyone intending to go through this process. Applications concerning British nationality attract exorbitant Home Office fees and some pre-application research may go some way to avoiding the financial hit of a refusal. Some research is required on our part too: the above guidance has been published just prior to our new Naturalisation Guide, which will now need some editing… thanks Home Office!