Passports - Australian, Canadian - any advice?

L

Little bird

Registered User
My son is 4 months now. I hold Australian passport and my husband Canadian. I would like to apply a passport for my son now. Any advice please?
 
You need to get citizenship first before you apply for a passport. My husband and I are both Australian and baby has an Australian passport. She's eligible for a HK passport but I don't want her to have one just now because neither hubby nor I have one. (he was born here, but renounced Chinese nationality, so he's a HK permanent resident still, but doesn't have the 3 stars on his ID card).

My opinion is, it's probably best to use the same country passport as the person who the bub is travelling with - usually the mother - just for simplicity. You could get both passports (dual citizenship) if Canada/Australia allow that, I dunno the rules there...

It's a fairly simple process though. For Australian passport, you need to go first to apply for citizenship by descent, then when that comes back, you can go straight to get the passport (but you have to wait to get the citizenship form first).

If you're a HK resident, you need to get some kind of right of abode sticker in the foreign passport, since they don't get ID cards until they're 11...
 
If you want a Canadian one, you also have to apply for citizenship first. It takes 14 months. You can apply for a passport at the same time but you would need to renew it after a year; otherwise wait until you have the citizenship card to apply for a passport, which would be good for 5 years.
 
We had to apply for an Australian Citizenship and Passport for our son before we left Hong Kong. The Citizenship certificate took 2 weeks, we picked that up and on the same day submitted the passport application which took just over 2 weeks. Before we left we had to get the right of abode sticker stamped in our sons passport at HK immigration, that took a couple of hours.
 
hi karmah1, so we should allow the usual check in airport time plus extra couple of hours for baby to get the sticker at immigration as well.
 
I think the sticker is done at the immigration department isn't it? not the airport immigration.

Also - our daughter is eligible for a HK passport (for some random reason even though neither of us are from HK) and they said she will be given her own HK ID card when the passport is ready next week.

I'm pretty sure you can have dual Canadian / Australian citizneship, just have to apply for citizenship by descent at relevant High Commissions.
 
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, we got the sticker when we registered the birth of our son. Once we recieved the Australian passport we took both to the Immigration Department in Wan Chai to get the sticker stamped into the passport. You need to do all this before you get to the airport.

You might want to check with either the Births Registry or Immigration department for further information..

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region - Immigration Department

GovHK: Registration of a Birth
 
Hi little bird, I am Canadian and I just had my baby boy in June...anyways in July I had to get the ball moving for my little one for passport and citizenship because we want to take him home to see family, anyways I advise you to do it ASAP....you have to appy for citizenship first before passport, it will take 14 months to get it thats why I said to do it ASAP...now heres the thing you cant get the passport without the citizenship but there is a way around that....what we did was apply for an emergency passport and you can get that in about 2 weeks....but you have to have a good reason like bringing baby home to see family, but they require proof so you need to have the plane tickets to show them or it wont work...another reason (which is what we used) we said that my hubby's work needed the passport so we could get my babys Visa to stay in the country (which was true) you need proof for that also, and we had a letter from the visa office saying that is what we needed to legally keep our baby in Hong Kong and to get the Visa...Also keep in mind that you will need to get done baby passport photos and citizenship photos for the Canadian Consulate. I went to the office which is by IFC mall and first apply for the citizenship and then right after that APPyied for the passport, have all forms ready and filled out before you go with the pics....

PS dont forget that for baby passport form you need the witness and it has to be Canadian that knows you (and it has to be a doctor/police officer etc) we didnt know any canadians in Hong Kong , especially in that kind of work feild so we had to request a special form at the consulate office (you cant get that form online) and they make you fill it in there before you leave so have 2 Canadian friends contact details to use as references ..they will call them.

the web address for the forms is Welcome Page | Page d'accueil and all the info is there also..

please note that once you receive the citizenship you need to re apply for a new passport.I hope this helps

from Chrssy
 
wow sounds like its would be much easier and alot quicker to get the Australian passport first and then apply for the Canadian passport!
 
wow ... you ladies are experts!! thanks.

I am in no hurry to fly with bb, just want to get it done so it is ready anytime.

FYI I phoned both consulates and both accept dual nationality.
 
I applied and received a Canadian passport for my baby in June when he was three months old. I did have to apply for a citizenship card at the same time but it was no problem. We now have a Canadian passport for him that is good for three years. Will not get the citizenship card for over a year. Found the whole process very easy. We were going out of HK for a trip and showed them the itinerary but I don't know if that was necessary.

The person we had sign our passport forms was a lawyer but she is not Canadian she is American. This wasn't an issue. Don't think they have to be Canadian they just have to be of the professions listed.

Anyway once we brought all of the forms in we had the passport within 15 days.
 
sso far as i know, it is ok to hold BOTH a canadian passport AND an australian one. as said before, you just apply for the citizenship first.
 
karmah1 - Do you remember how long it took to get the stamp? Did you have to drop the passport off and then go back to get it? Thanks!
 
"PS dont forget that for baby passport form you need the witness and it has to be Canadian that knows you (and it has to be a doctor/police officer etc) we didnt know any canadians in Hong Kong , especially in that kind of work feild so we had to request a special form at the consulate office (you cant get that form online) and they make you fill it in there before you leave so have 2 Canadian friends contact details to use as references ..they will call them."


i've got a canadian passport as have both of my kids... we've NEVER used a Canadian to sign for us. we've used brits and HK chinese. one lawyer, one police officer, one doctor.
 
FutureHKmom said:
karmah1 - Do you remember how long it took to get the stamp? Did you have to drop the passport off and then go back to get it? Thanks!
Click to expand...

My husband was at the immigration department when they opened so he was the first to be served. It was a quiet day so he only had to wait an hour to go and collect it.
 
wow I didnt know that they didnt have to be Canadian , I could have saved some money with that one..woops, now I know for next time! I wont tell the hubby that one as he didnt think a Canadian needed to sgin it :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top