How to surrender british passport and regain ILR

[Raju06]

Hello everyone,
I got a query and would highly appreciate your responses. My husband originally a nepalese citizen/british army, had a ILR on his biometric card since 2014 after he left army but he got a british passport after naturalization in 2017. We did not know that we have to send biometric card to home office after we get british passport and also we did not know we cant travel with biometric card so my husband travelled last month using biometric card and on arrival back to uk from holiday, his biometric card was taken away at the airport immigration and we didnt know why that was done until I read the posts here. But now my husband wants to surrender british passport and regain his ILR status due to his workplace requirement. How is it possible? If he surrendred his british passport/naturalisation, is it possible to regain ILR? In future if he wants to reapply for british passport, can he do that? Any kind of response would be appreciated

[cyclina1]

It is impossible to renounce the UK citizenship and regain ILR immediately. Most countries take their citizenship very seriously. In the UK, you can renounce but not guarantee you can get it back in the future.

[cyclina1]

And i think your case is even more complicated - Nepalese government does not allow dual citizenship, therefore when you gain the UK citizenship, your lose Nepalese citizenship at the same time. Now you cannot renounce the UK citizenship because now it is your only citizenship you have and the UK nationality law doesn't not allow people voluntarily stateless.

So the only way to renounce the UK citizenship is: you have to reapply and gain back the Nepalese citizenship first, then renounce the UK citizenship. But again, even you do so, you won't have ILR in the UK.

[Raju06]

Hi Cyclina 1,
Thank you so much for your response, it is very helpful to me.
My husband travelled last month not knowing he cant travel any more with the Nepalese passport but I have heard other nepalese travelling with nepalese passport so many times even after getting british passport and the nepalese goverment doesn't seem to be noticing this so I assume the nepalese goverment doesnt have any system to detect this, in this case,even though nepalese goverment doesnt accept dual citizenship, I assume the nepalese goverment hasnt cancelled my husband's citizenship. I might be wrong but this is just my assumption. He has his ILR in his biometric card, that card been taken away at the immigration at airport, does that mean they cancelled his ILR status. Still confused, please help.

[Casa]

Hi Cyclina 1,
Thank you so much for your response, it is very helpful to me.
My husband travelled last month not knowing he cant travel any more with the Nepalese passport but I have heard other nepalese travelling with nepalese passport so many times even after getting british passport and the nepalese goverment doesn't seem to be noticing this so I assume the nepalese goverment doesnt have any system to detect this, in this case,even though nepalese goverment doesnt accept dual citizenship, I assume the nepalese goverment hasnt cancelled my husband's citizenship. I might be wrong but this is just my assumption. He has his ILR in his biometric card, that card been taken away at the immigration at airport, does that mean they cancelled his ILR status. Still confused, please help.

ILR becomes void once British citizenship is granted. This is why the BRP has to be returned as it is now invalid. You can't hold both British citizenship and ILR.

He can't 'regain' ILR and would have to start the whole qualification period again.

[Raju06]

Hi Cyclina 1,
Thank you so much for your response, it is very helpful to me.
My husband travelled last month not knowing he cant travel any more with the Nepalese passport but I have heard other nepalese travelling with nepalese passport so many times even after getting british passport and the nepalese goverment doesn't seem to be noticing this so I assume the nepalese goverment doesnt have any system to detect this, in this case,even though nepalese goverment doesnt accept dual citizenship, I assume the nepalese goverment hasnt cancelled my husband's citizenship. I might be wrong but this is just my assumption. He has his ILR in his biometric card, that card been taken away at the immigration at airport, does that mean they cancelled his ILR status. Still confused, please help.

ILR becomes void once British citizenship is granted. This is why the BRP has to be returned as it is now invalid. You can't hold both British citizenship and ILR.

He can't 'regain' ILR and would have to start the whole qualification period again.

Hi Casa,
Thank you so much, now I am clear about brp, ILR and british passport and their validity. One last thing, I would like to know is how do i know whether or not my husband's nepalese citizenship is being cancelled? Is it the UK goverment cancelling or nepalese government his nepalese citizenship? Because my husband is trying to rejoin army which he left in 2014 and they require nepalese citizenship. They don't require ILR, once he rejoins army, they will apply section 8 on his nepalese passport which exempts him from immigration control. But before renouncing british passport, we want to make sure he has valid nepalese passport and i am not sure if his current nepalese passport is still valid or we need to apply for the new one and how to get started, its so complicated to handle at the moment, please help,

[CR001]

The Home Office does not cancel the foreign citizenship or notify the embassy. As with most countries that don't allow dual nationality, he likely lost Nepalese citizenship automatically or he was required to inform them and return his passport.

You need to find out from the Nepalese authorities.