Citizenship Fee Waiver: How to Apply If You Cannot Afford the Fee

Who can request a waiver

The Home Office caseworker guidance states: “There is no fee waiver available for citizenship applications made by adults.” An adult applying to naturalise pays the full fee, which is £1,709 to apply plus £130 for the ceremony.

Anyone under 18 who is eligible to register as a British citizen may request that the fee be waived. The guidance lists the routes it covers:

• Form MN1: registration of children under 18
• Forms S2 and S3: registration of a stateless person
• Form T: registration of someone born in the UK on or after 1 January 1983 who lived here until they were 10
• Forms B(OS) and B(OTA): registration of British Overseas citizens, British subjects, British protected persons, British Nationals (Overseas) and British Overseas Territories citizens
• Form EM: registration through residence in Hong Kong before 1997 (paper only)

A parent or legal guardian makes the request on the child’s behalf and can include their other children in it. If a child turns 18 after requesting a waiver but before applying for citizenship, the guidance says the citizenship application is treated as received on the date the waiver request was received, so the right to register as a child is not lost.

Children looked after by a local authority

The guidance says that where the application is made by or for a child looked after by a local authority, “a fee is not payable, and it is not necessary for the child’s financial circumstances to be evidenced”. GOV.UK tells such applicants not to request a fee waiver, and to give evidence of the looked-after status when applying for citizenship instead.

A child receiving local authority support that falls short of being looked after, for example under section 17 of the Children Act 1989, does go through the affordability test, but the local authority’s own assessment can be strong evidence.

The affordability test

The guidance says a fee waiver must be granted where the child and their parents are found to credibly demonstrate that they cannot afford the fee and that their income is not sufficient to meet the child’s needs.

The test looks at what income and savings are left once accommodation and essential living needs for the child, the parents and any dependants have been met. It takes account of:

• Whether accommodation and essential living needs are being met by someone else, such as family, a charity, a local authority or a home government, while the family still cannot afford the fee
• Whether there are savings, or reasonable efforts to save for the fee over the past 6 months
• Whether spending has gone beyond essential living needs

The guidance says the welfare of a child in the UK must be a primary consideration, and that the same approach applies to children outside the UK who may be affected by payment of the fee.

How the request is made

• Use either the online waiver request form or the paper form. GOV.UK says a request made online must be followed by an online citizenship application, and a paper request must be printed and sent with the paper application.
• The waiver request is considered before the citizenship application is assessed.
• If it is granted online, the Home Office sends a personalised code called a token, by email or letter, to enter in the citizenship application. A token only works for the named child.
• Applications from Guernsey or Jersey must be made by post. GOV.UK says the fee waiver cannot currently be requested from the Isle of Man.

The guidance notes that a fee waiver decision is not an immigration or nationality decision, so its outcome says nothing about how the citizenship application itself will be decided.

Evidence asked for

The request form asks for the financial circumstances of the child and of anyone the child depends on for financial support. The guidance says this is typically:

• Statements for the 6 months before the request, for every bank or building society account held
• A full breakdown of monthly income and expenditure at the time of the request
• Details of savings and investments, including any held for the family by another adult in the household
• Details of benefits claimed by the family and any dependants
• Evidence from a charity or local authority providing support, particularly if that support is going to stop
• Identity documents such as a passport or national identity card

The guidance lists reasons a request can be rejected, including unreliable information about circumstances, intentionally disposing of funds, spending beyond essential needs, having savings and income sufficient to pay, and not taking reasonable steps to have funds ready for a foreseeable fee.

Several children at once

Where requests are made at the same time for more than one child sharing at least one parent, they may be considered as a group against the family’s overall position. A separate request form is completed for each child.

If the family could pay for some of the children but not all, the guidance allows a “part payment” waiver: the fee is waived for some children and requested for the others. An individual fee is either waived in full or paid in full, and cannot be reduced. The guidance says waivers are generally issued to the oldest child first, so that older children do not turn 18 and lose the right to register.

Where an adult in the same family is also applying for citizenship, the cost of that adult application is taken into account in the family’s affordability picture, even though the adult cannot have their own fee waived.

See our guide on family applications and registering a child as a British citizen.

The ceremony fee

A child does not normally attend a citizenship ceremony. Where a child turns 18 between applying and the decision, the £130 ceremony fee becomes payable, but the guidance says that where a fee waiver has been granted the ceremony fee is waived as well.

If the request is refused

The guidance does not provide a right of appeal against a fee waiver decision. What it does say is that where a child turned 18 after requesting a waiver but before applying for citizenship, and the request is then rejected, the citizenship application is still treated as submitted on the date of the waiver request only if the application and payment are made within 10 working days of the rejection being communicated.

A previous waiver in the same family has no bearing on a later request. The guidance says the family must qualify again, but can generally be expected to if it can evidence that its circumstances have not changed.

Related guides

• British citizenship costs
• Citizenship costs 2026
• Citizenship by naturalisation
• Citizenship for children
• Budgeting for immigration
• UK visa fees: complete guide
• Immigration health surcharge

The starting point on GOV.UK is Get a citizenship application fee waiver if you’re under 18.

Questions and answers