A win for our Children into Citizens campaign as the Home Office reduces child citizenship fees
A win for our Children into Citizens campaign as the Home Office reduces child citizenship fees
Citizens UK welcomes the positive news that the fee to register a child as a British citizen will fall from £1,214 to £1,000 - a reduction of £214, and a meaningful step forward for thousands of families.
Although the fee is still above the cost price to the Home Office (£575), the new fee amounts to a reduction of over 20% and marks the first time the fee has been reduced. It will save millions of pounds each year for some of the most marginalised families in our communities. We hope this is the first step in the Government ensuring that no child who is entitled to British citizenship is priced out by the fee.
This is a great move in the right direction. There is more to be done, but the reduction in the child citizenship fees will alleviate some of the financial burden on families, especially for those of us who have to pay for more than one child. We will not stop here but continue to fight for change and fairness.
Nori, Lambeth Citizens Leader and member of the Children into Citizens Action Team
History of the campaign
Our Children into Citizens campaign began in 2017 after a listening campaign with hundreds of families in our member institutions. We heard repeatedly that the fee (currently £1,214) was pricing young people out of their entitlement to British citizenship, with tens of thousands of children across the country being affected.
Without citizenship, most children could be denied basic services, as well as being barred from voting and participating in public life, and the dignity of being recognised as a citizen in the country that is home. Even if families can find the money, they are often forced into debt, which causes families, like Bernice and her two children, a great deal of stress.
In 2022, we won a campaign for the fee to be waived for children in care and for a fee waiver to be introduced for families that couldn’t afford it. This has benefited 10s of 1000s of families even though there are ongoing challenges with applying for and receiving the fee waiver.
Just some of our other highlights include:
- In 2018, we coordinated a letter from 100 education leaders to the new Home Secretary, Sajid Javid MP and Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes MP about the impact of high fees.
- In 2019, as part of the General Election, Citizens UK alliances raised the issue with the candidates to be MP in their constituencies.
- In 2020, community leader Kafilat and her daughter, Ismat, spoke to Sky News about their experience with high fees.
View the full campaign timeline here.
“We welcome the news that the government is reducing the cost of child citizenship fees to £1000 from £1214. We have watched these fees rise exponentially over the past decade and have witnessed our families being pushed into poverty as a result.
We have supported more than 60 of our pupils in gaining their British citizenship, something each and every one of them has had the right to do. Becoming British citizens has solidified their sense of belonging and stability in the UK and has allowed them to continue contributing positively to their communities, fully participating in society.
The fees are still too high and ideally we’d like to see them reduced to the actual cost of processing each application, but this is a step in the right direction.”
Fiona Carrick-Davies, Surrey Square Primary School, South London Citizens
Whilst the fee remains far too high, this is a welcome step toward alleviating the pressures faced by families in accessing their children’s rights to British citizenship.
Our Pathway to Citizenship report, published in November 2024, makes clear that we cannot tackle child poverty without fixing the UK’s pathway to citizenship. We will continue to campaign for child citizenship fees to be reduced to cost price (£575).
Learn more about our Children into Citizens campaign
Launched in 2017, the campaign has driven major wins through advocacy, media, and actions, including a 2020 High Court ruling deeming the fee unlawful, upheld in 2021. By 2022, the Home Office introduced fee waivers for some children, marking a major victory for the campaign.
Since 1996, Citizens UK has been developing the leadership of migrant communities. In this time, dozens of migrant led campaigns have been successful, including the Living Wage campaign, Strangers into Citizens, and the end of indefinite detention of children as well as campaigns of refugee resettlement and reuniting child refugees with their families.