New born baby in India to British father and Indian Mother

[helloindiauk]

Hi @Bobthemoggie,

My child was born in India in 2025. The father is a British citizen by naturalization (2021) and also an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI). The mother holds an Indian passport with Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the UK. Which citizenship should we apply for our newborn in India? Currently, both the baby and the mother are in India.

British Passport: How do we obtain an exit certificate from India if we choose the British passport route?
Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode (CoE-RoA): Is this a viable option? What is the turnaround time for this process? If we choose this route, can our child get a British passport after arriving in the UK, or will they have to wait until they are 18 to apply for a British passport?
Thanks for your help!

[secret.simon]

The child is a British citizen by descent automatically if the date of the birth of the child is on or after the date of the naturalisation certificate.

The parent can apply for a British passport directly with the child's birth certificate and the British parent's naturalisation certificate.

Note that a first British passport for children born on the Sub-Continent can take six months to a year.

Re the CoE-RoA route, I am not sure if it viable any more. The Indian government is refusing Indian passports to children whose parents (or even one parent) have naturalised as foreign citizens.

Their logic is that the following renunciation of Indian citizenship also strips Indian citizenship from the minor children of that parent.

However, it is unclear (to me) if that is just the case for children alive at the time of the renunciation or if it applies to all children born of that parent.

I'd have thought the former, but I am not sure.

Note that in order to apply for a CoE-RoA, the child must have a non-British passport. The CoE-RoA is stuck in that non-British passport.

And the child is a British citizen for the rest of their life. They can apply for a British passport at any time, so long as they have the parent's naturalisation certificate and their birth certificate.

[helloindiauk]

Thanks for reply ..Really appriciated.

One more query about CoE-RoA.. Is there any exit visa/paperwork required after getting CoE on baby's Indian passport?