[gertrunde]

One of the more fun related items...

You are not eligible for an ETA if you are a British citizen.

On first glance, that sounds fairly common sense, as if you're a citizen, why would you need/want one? But there's a wrinkle...

It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it, and cannot use their other-nationality passport(s) like they used to be able to do.

Which means paying for a British passport if you didn't have one before.

(There is an alternative, but it's silly money, £589 vs £95 for an adult passport).

And IIRC, the whole thing is because of the new electronic border system that's being introduced or something like that.

[dtf]

Some British women now find themselves in a Kafkaesque situation where the UK home office refuses to renew or grant them a UK passport, because their foreign passport is under a different name. (Greece and Spain are mentioned in [1], but I know people in France affected by this)

Where previously these women could at least travel to their birth country to visit dying relatives on their foreign passport, they are now locked out waiting two months for a £600 entitlement certificate. Meanwhile, non-British visitors can just pay £16 for an ETA on this whizzy app.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/16/border-rule...

[big-and-small]

While this is a real problem and I do have relative who had this issue like this there are ways to get new UK passport without paying £600 or changing legal name in other country.

It's just take digging in government rules and arguing. As long as it's not the first UK passport it's doable.

[andsoitis]

> It means that British citizens with dual (or more) nationality must have a UK passport, and must travel into the UK using it

This is a pretty common practice for most countries.

[dcminter]

Sure, but it was a change that was slipped through under the radar without any proper justification for it (the situation wasn't even clarified for dual nationals until quite close to the deadline).

[Havoc]

UK isn’t the only country that does this.

eg South Africa allows dual but you’re not allowed to use the other passport at border or within country.

I can kinda understand it from give perspective. Harder to track people when they switch constantly. People flying in on one passport and out with the other etc

[xnorswap]

Most countries require their own dual-nationality citizens to enter on their local passports not foreign ones, Britain was an exception before. It's not unreasonable to ask for the British passport, and I say this as someone affected.

[dcminter]

> It's not unreasonable to ask for the British passport

Why? What legitimate purpose does this serve?

[RobotToaster]

I've read the issue is that some countries require you to renounce your previous nationality to get citizenship, and people have taken advantage of not needing a British passport by lying about renouncing their British citizenship.

I've seen claims this technique was actually recommended by the British consulate, no idea if that's true.

[gertrunde]

ok, did not know that, every day is a school day!

[ludicrousdispla]

One of my former colleagues would refer to this as "introducing an unnecessary constraint"

[extraduder_ire]

Additionally: An Irish passport gets you into the UK just as well as a UK one does.

[dghf]

This new rule might be problematic for those Northern Irish people who identify solely as Irish (as is their right under the Good Friday Agreement) and who only hold an Irish passport: unless things have changed since the DeSouza case [0], the UK Government and UK law treat everyone born in Northern Ireland (as long as at least one of their parents meets citizenship or residency requirements) as a British citizen, regardless of their opinions on the matter. The UK Government holds that this is compatible with the GFA because you can renounce your British citizenship; but you have to pay hundreds of pounds to do so.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_DeSouza

[bdbdbdb]

Small point, if you're traveling from republic of Ireland you don't practically need a passport or an ETA, you can just drive over the invisible border