Can I apply for a nationality fee waiver?

Yes, if the application is for a child under 18 and your family cannot afford the fee. The Home Office can waive the fee when a child applies to register as a British citizen. It cannot waive the fee for an adult who applies to naturalise or register, however low their income. This guide covers who can ask, how the Home Office decides, the evidence it wants and what to do if it says no. Fees and rules were checked on 25 October 2026.

Who can ask for a fee waiver

The person applying for citizenship must be under 18 when the waiver is requested and must be eligible to register as a British citizen. A parent or legal guardian makes the request, and can include the child's brothers and sisters in the same request.

The child registration fee is £1,000. It came down from £1,214 on 8 April 2026, the only nationality fee that fell this year. The waiver covers that fee on the usual children's forms:

• form MN1, used by most children, including children born in the UK whose parent has since settled or become British (section 1(3)) and children registering at the Home Office's discretion (section 3(1))
• form T, for children born in the UK who lived here for their first ten years (section 1(4))
• forms S2 and S3, for stateless children
• forms B(OS) and B(OTA), for children who already hold another form of British nationality
• form EM, for registration through residence in Hong Kong before 1997 (paper only)

Since 22 July 2025 it also covers the £607 fee for children of Irish citizens registering under section 4AA.

The power to waive is in paragraph 8 of Schedule 8 to the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018. The Home Office may waive the fee where it considers the fee unaffordable, looking at the child's finances and those of anyone who could reasonably be expected to pay some or all of it.

Children in local authority care

A child who is looked after by a local authority pays no fee at all, so there is no waiver to ask for. Whoever makes the citizenship application, usually the local authority, selects that option on the form and sends evidence of the care arrangement. No ceremony fee is charged either. A child looked after outside the UK under a similar arrangement is treated the same way.

A child whose family gets help from the council under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 is not "looked after" in this sense. That family still has to ask for a waiver. A letter from the council explaining the support is strong evidence, though, because the council will already have assessed the family's needs.

Adults: no affordability waiver

Nobody aged 18 or over can get a waiver because they cannot afford the fee. That applies to naturalisation (£1,709 plus the £130 ceremony fee, £1,839 in total) and to adult registration (£1,540 plus £130). The Home Office caseworker guidance says so in plain terms.

This catches people who were born in the UK and lived here for their first ten years. They can register under section 1(4) at any age, but at 18 the fee rises to £1,540 plus the ceremony fee and the waiver is gone. If your child has a right to register, apply while they are still under 18.

The Home Office fee waiver for human rights applications, which many families have used for limited leave to remain, does not extend to citizenship. More on the adult position is in our guide is there a fee waiver for British citizenship?

A small number of adults pay nothing for reasons unrelated to income. Applications under the Windrush Scheme are free. Registration under section 4C, for people born abroad before 1983 to a British mother, has no application fee; only the £130 ceremony fee is due. Section 4L, the discretionary route for people who would have been British but for historical unfairness or an error by a public body, is not free: it costs £1,540. Separately, the Home Office can waive any nationality fee where its own maladministration has caused the applicant harm and a waiver is the right remedy (paragraph 7 of Schedule 8).

How the Home Office decides

The first question is affordability. After paying for housing and essential living costs for everyone in the household, is there enough left to pay the fee? Essential costs include rent or mortgage, utilities, food, clothing, toiletries, non-prescription medicines and cleaning products, plus reasonable travel and phone costs. The caseworker counts the child's money, the parents' money, a partner's income and support from any other adult the family lives with or relies on. Savings count. So do bank accounts abroad, property other than the family home, investments and anything that could reasonably be sold.

The second question is about the child. Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 makes the welfare of a child in the UK a primary consideration, so the caseworker must ask whether paying the fee would leave a child's needs unmet. The guidance gives its own example: giving up an after-school sports class to pay the fee is not usually enough, but it can be if losing the class would harm that child's wellbeing. The guidance takes the same approach to children abroad who would be affected, and cites MM (Lebanon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2017] UKSC 10.

Requests are often refused because:

• bank statements show spending on holidays or other things that are not essential
• the family has savings, or spare income, that would cover the fee
• money was given or lent away, or debts were paid off early, shortly before the request
• the family made no effort over the previous six months to save for a fee it knew was coming
• the account given is incomplete or does not match the documents, for example a parent showed healthy savings in a recent visa application and cannot explain where the money went

Evidence to send

The online form asks for the child's identity document (a passport, national identity card, or a biometric residence permit up to 18 months after its expiry date) and evidence of the household's finances. In practice the Home Office expects:

• statements for the last six months for every bank and building society account held by the child, the parents and any partner, including accounts abroad
• payslips, or for the self-employed, invoices and tax returns
• the tenancy agreement or mortgage statement, and recent utility bills
• benefit award letters, such as Universal Credit
• letters from the council or a charity describing the support they give and whether it will continue
• letters from relatives or friends who help the family, saying how much they give and how often
• medical evidence if a disability affects the family's income or costs

Explain anything unusual, such as large deposits, cash withdrawals or transfers abroad, before the caseworker asks. Missing evidence is overlooked only in exceptional cases. If the Home Office asks for more information and you do not reply, normally within 14 days, the request is refused.

This is not a complete list. What you need depends on your circumstances, and the documents vary from case to case. Your solicitor will tell you exactly what applies to you.

How to apply

1. Check that the child can register, and under which section. The waiver decision says nothing about whether the citizenship application will succeed, and the fee for a refused citizenship application is not refunded.
2. Ask for the waiver online on GOV.UK, or on the paper child citizenship fee waiver request form. An online request leads to an online citizenship application. A paper request goes in with the paper citizenship application and is decided first.
3. Wait for the decision. There is no published service standard; the Home Office says only that it will decide promptly, and faster where the child is disabled or vulnerable.
4. If an online request is granted you receive a token, which is a code. Use it in the citizenship application within 28 days of the decision, then give biometrics at a UKVCAS centre within 45 days. Miss either date and you may have to ask for the waiver again.

If your child is nearly 18

Some routes are open only to children, including section 1(3) and registration at the Home Office's discretion under section 3(1). If the request is made online and the child turns 18 before applying for citizenship, the Home Office treats the citizenship application as made on the date of the waiver request, so the child is still assessed as a child. If the waiver is refused, the family has 10 working days from the refusal to apply and pay and keep that date. If a waiver is granted and the child turns 18 while the citizenship application is being decided, the £130 ceremony fee is waived too.

Where several children apply and the family can afford some fees but not all, the Home Office waives some fees in full and asks for the others in full. It never reduces a fee. It usually waives the oldest child's fee first, because that child is closest to losing the right to register, but you can ask for a different order on the form.

If the request is refused

There is no appeal against a fee waiver decision and no right to ask for reconsideration, because it is not an immigration decision. You can make a new request with better evidence, or pay the fee. If the decision is unlawful, for example the caseworker ignored evidence or did not consider the child's welfare, it can be challenged by judicial review. A claim must be brought promptly and in any event within three months of the decision.

If the citizenship application itself is later refused, a nationality review normally costs £513. Since 11 November 2025 the review is free where the original fee was waived or the child was looked after by a local authority.

Other nationality fee waivers

There are two more. The first helps children born on or after 1 July 2006 whose mother was married to someone other than the natural father when they were born. Nationality law treats the mother's husband as the father, so a child whose natural father is British can miss out on citizenship at birth. These children register under section 3(1), and since 6 April 2020 the Home Office has been able to waive their fee (paragraph 6 of Schedule 8). The second is the maladministration waiver described above, which can apply to any nationality fee, adult or child.

Why the waiver exists

The children's waiver came out of litigation. O was born in the UK, lived here all her life and became entitled to register under section 1(4) at the age of ten. Her mother, a single parent on benefits, could not raise the fee, which was then £1,012. O and the Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens challenged it.

In R (Project for the Registration of Children as British Citizens) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2019] EWHC 3536 (Admin) the High Court held that the Home Secretary had not had regard to the best interests of children, as section 55 requires, when setting the fee. The Court of Appeal upheld that finding in [2021] EWCA Civ 193. The wider argument, that a fee at that level was beyond the Home Secretary's powers, failed in the Court of Appeal and again in the Supreme Court ([2022] UKSC 3), which held that section 68 of the Immigration Act 2014 permitted it.

The section 55 ruling still forced a review of the fee. The result was the affordability waiver and the exception for children in care, both in force from 16 June 2022. For families this history has a practical point: the child's welfare is part of the test, and a refusal that does not deal with it properly is open to challenge.

Questions people ask

How we can help

We confirm whether and when a child can register, pick the route that gives an entitlement where there is one, prepare the waiver request and the financial evidence, and then make the citizenship application. Our fixed fees are on the fees page, and there is more on registering a child as a British citizen. Guides are general information, not advice on your situation. For a view on your own case, ask a solicitor and we will reply by phone or email.