A reader living in France for more than 50 years says recent UK travel rules have turned returning to Britain into a bureaucratic ordeal for dual nationals without a valid UK passport. The writer, identified as S.L. from Lyon, says the situation only became problematic after changes linked to the UK’s Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system, which now appears to require them to obtain a UK passport rather than rely on French citizenship alone.
According to the letter, the reader had allowed their UK passport to expire in 1990 and previously did not consider this a major issue because they hold French citizenship and are a dual national. That changed with the new travel requirements, prompting an application for a UK passport. However, the Passport Office reportedly rejected the birth certificate submitted with the application, saying the copy was not acceptable because it was issued in 2019, far later than the expiry date of the previous passport.
The reader says officials then requested extensive additional evidence to establish identity and nationality, including school reports, university records, health records, tax authority letters, or any correspondence from the British government dated before 1990. The letter presents this as an example of excessive administrative demands and suggests that dual nationals who assume a French passport is enough to travel back to the UK may be mistaken.
The writer’s main warning is that dual nationals without a current UK passport may face difficulty returning to the country, even if they hold citizenship elsewhere. The letter frames the experience as a frustrating clash with modern travel bureaucracy and compares it to a Kafkaesque process, implying that the system is complicated, opaque and difficult to navigate.
The complaint reflects broader concerns among expatriates and dual nationals about how post-Brexit travel rules and identity checks are affecting people who have long lived outside the UK. For this reader, a long-expired passport and a lack of older documentary evidence have created a major obstacle to renewing travel documents and, by extension, to re-entering the UK.
The letter ends with a note inviting other readers who have faced similar problems renewing a UK passport from France to share their experiences.
