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Recently HO approved my BC application. Inside the envelope with all supporting documents that were returned to me I found my Permanent Residence card (I am an EU national).

I wonder what will be the status/validity of that document after I have received my Citizenship Cert.? And whether I might need to return it to HO at some point (e.g. after receiving Certificate, or maybe later after getting passport)?

Trigger for these questions was the last week e-mail from my local council (this e-mail came a few days after I'd received the first e-mail confirming the date of the ceremony), which advised me to return biometric residence permit, in case I've ever had one. (e-mail also contained direct warning threatening those who fail to return BRP with financial penalty - up to 1 grant)

Although this request clearly does no apply to me, as I have never had such permit (EEA rout does not require BPR at any stage), this problem made me thinking about the fate of my DCPR.

Do I need to do anything with this, or following passport receipt I can just keep it as a souvenir?

Hi kwarek!

After naturalisation, one has to return their BRP within the HO stated time period or be liable to pay a fine. However, based on the first few responses on this thread - british-citizenship/what-to-do-with-per ... 20020.html - it seems that you can keep the DCPR as a souvenir.

Good to know... the same situation here for my spouse... looks like we are going to keep it as a souvenir

@Twine.

Thanks for the link. It looks like I was a bit sloppy with my search across the board to find a right blog, and ended up creating a redundant topic that was already covered under the similar heading.

I gather from the discussion there that DCPR is an EU construct, hence UK legislation does not determine the fate of the card (as it does with BRP) after someone becomes a subject of the Queen, and therefore EU nationals who are PR holders have no special obligations to return it anywhere.

But aside from the main topic, I recommend the discussion (debate?) that developed under that thread and turned into a sub-plot exploring the national identity dilemmas associated with acquiring citizenship of another country. Especially provoking is a series of neurotic posts by some Commonwealth citizen.

@kwarek

No worries. At least this thread will help you and others.

Regarding the ensuing discussion (or debate?), I did specifically refer to "the first few responses" for that reason.

I think concepts such as national identity and belonging are often emotional and deeply personal even if the sample of people on this forum are less likely to be wedded to the idea of maintaining the (notional) national allegiance that they were born with than the general population.

@Twine

I believe we (naturalized British subjects) are all very much wedded to the idea of primary allegiance. The difference between EU (rather quiet embrace of new identity) and non-EU (sometimes neurotic embrace) is that for EU nationals - as I suppose - BC can be seen as a more or less natural extension to their original identity which not need to be swapped, cancelled or renounced in order to embrace British values and accept new loyalty. Although on the symbolic level the change is significant, on the grounds of History, geography, security (NATO) we'd rubbed our elbows for some time already.

Therefore our situation is probably less agonasing than that of (at least some of) non-EU new British subjects.