Born in Japan, applying for second passport

5 comments

1. As far as later not telling the Japanese government and they’ll never find out, that is bad advice and unnecessary.

   When your post 21 son in the future, renews his Japanese passport, there will be a question whether or not he has another nationality. He must not lie, and must say “yes”.

   Then he will be told that he needs to choose a nationality. He will then choose “Japanese”. Then he will be asked to make an effort to renounce his other nationality. The reply is to the effect of “sure, okay”, but then that is all that needs to happen.

   There is no need to show any evidence later of what has or hasn’t happened after that conversation, so basically your son does nothing and keeps both nationalities.

2. Britishe embassy phone number: +81 (3) 5211-1100

   You call them, say you are trying to get your son’s first passport, and ask which document is accepted. They will tell you exactly what document to get (or they might not if the embassy is totally useless! But you might get the real answer)

   I’m not trying to be glib, but phone calls are underrated. Sometimes you get garbage answers from people and you have to sense that, but a lot of times (especially for something like this, which has gotta be common) you will get a good, quick, and correct answer

3. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what you’re actually applying for here is UK citizenship, isn’t it? The passport is just an ancillary product of it being granted, even if that’s your primary aim. I’ll be going through this in relation to another nationality for my own kids before too long.

4. Firstly…

   UK will need the following:

   – his full local birth certificate (shussetodoke kisaijiko shomeisho). Issued by the Japanese authorities. It’s unlikely the municipality office where the birth was registered would have it 18 years later so you might need to contact the legal affairs bureau to get it (https://www.moj.go.jp/ENGLISH/m_hisho06_00034.html) also because he’s 18 and thus and adult it’s likely he might have to get it himself… no more hand holding

   – Koseki (this is easy to obtain at the municipality it’s registered/MyNumber card at conbini)

   – your (his parent) full birth certificate

   – your parents (his grandparents) full birth certificate

   (The UK birth certificates can be obtained via the General registry office)

   – photocopy of your proof of residency in Japan I.e your resident card (or your Koseki should you be Japanese too?)

   – photocopy of your UK passport, if you have one.

   – birth registration name confirmation form (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/birth-registration-name-confirmation-form)

   – proof of parents marriage (you can use the Japanese spouse Koseki for this)

   – as you’ve already registered the birth to UK when he was born probably worth submitting a copy of his consular birth certificate too, as that should help speed things up.

   Secondly…

   >I registered his birth at the embassy in Tokyo when he was born

   As he was born outside UK then just to confirm what was the section of the British nationality act in which he acquired Uk nationality (it should say on his consular birth certificate if you have that?)

   I ask because I’m wondering why you’re trying to hide his UK Nationality…

   Because If section 2 then he was automatically born British. Section 2 would mean that you, his parent was either a “British national otherwise than by decent” (i.e you, the parent were born in the UK to Uk parent/s) or you naturalized to UK

   If section 3, then he was NOT born automatically British. Section 3 would mean that you, his parent is a “British national by decent” meaning you were not born in the UK. Meaning your son would need to be born in the UK to obtain automatic British nationality from you. But if a “British citizen by decent” spends at least 3 consecutive years of their life in the Uk at any point in time (just before the birth of their children) then they can pass down UK Nationality to their children not born in UK via section 3. But Section 3 is NOT automatic acquisition of UK nationality. Meaning you have to manually acquire UK nationality via registration of the birth before age 18, but kicker is then that triggers Article 11 of Japan’s nationality act when the Uk nationality is acquired by section 3. Making by your son no longer Japanese at the point in time when you registered the birth to the UK to acquire in his UK nationality.

   So If section 2 then you don’t need to hide it from Japan because he was born dual.

   If section 3… then yea… that might explain why you’re trying to hide it.

5. Let’s put appart the citizenship thing

   The hospital paper, you’ll probably won’t get another one anymore, but that’s not the document they need since that one is to register the birth at the embasse/city hall and you said you already did it.. That’s an A3 paper 出生証明書・出生届の用紙

   The birth certificate otherwise is usually delivered at the city hall, dunno if it’s the one you registered or the one you live in since for me it was the same. It’s called 出生届記載事項証明