Baby's citizenship

[Jimbot33]

I am a Canadian citizen, born in Hong Kong, and a citizen of both countries (holding a Canadian passport and a Hong Kong SAR Chinese passport).

I will be having a baby in China as a single unwed father with a woman of Chinese nationality.

I have a few questions:
1) How can I apply for HK SAR citizenship for my baby?
2) Can I ALSO apply for Mainland Chinese citizenship for my baby since he/she will be born in the mainland?
3) I will apply for Canadian citizenship for my baby. Will it create any complication that affects 1 & 2 above?

Thank you very much for your help in advance.

James

 

[lesliefu]

I know that China does not allow dual citizenship.

Theoretically HKG does not too - however, you can get around that as the application time for Canadian citizenship is 15-18MONTHS, whilst the time to get a HK Passport is 2 weeks. so in the application you can safely note that your baby does not have citizenship with any other country at the time you fill out the application.

 

[carang]

please also note, you must apply for canadian citizenship BEFORE you apply for the passport (but you can actually put in both applications at the same time...) also, it is easy to get a canadian passport BEFORE you get the citizenship card, long before 18 months! i got my daughter's passport in 7 days when she was 5 weeks old.

 

[banane76]

Can your baby get Canadian citizenship? I thought they changed the law where the parent must be born in Canada for their child (not born in Canada) to be eligible. Check on that, but I think it was a recent change.

 

[carang]

possible...but i have already suggested to the OP that he contact all of the relevant authorities. it's much faster and much more likely to be correct information than on a public forum.

 

[Jimbot33]

Thank you all for your suggestions. James

 

[lesliefu]

please also note, you must apply for canadian citizenship BEFORE you apply for the passport (but you can actually put in both applications at the same time...) also, it is easy to get a canadian passport BEFORE you get the citizenship card, long before 18 months! i got my daughter's passport in 7 days when she was 5 weeks old.

really? did you have to travel with your daughter within the first year? they wouldn't allow me to get a passport before the citizenship card! i'm wondering why now...will check on it...

 

[Portia]

I got my son's Cdn citizenship card around 9 months after I applied. Like Cara we got his Cdn passport first. I think I also submitted the passport application as soon as I had applied for citizenship. You are granted a temporary passport while you wait for confirmation of citizenship.

 

[solidstars]

we applied for both roughly at the same time.

yes the laws changed in april 2009 (we barely made it). your child CAN be canadian but his future children now cannot, something along those lines. Fairly complicated.

your child's birth certificate would HAVE to have your name on it them, if you are unwed, i believe.

 

[banane76]

I'm born in Canada so there was no problem for my daughter getting citizenship, but her children will have to be born in Canada. You apply for citizenship and the passport on the same day and their first passport is only valid for 2 years anyway because they'll look very different.