Belonger status

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British & Commonwealth
Citizenship
Commonwealth Nationality Laws

British (history)
Australian
Barbadian
Canadian (history)
Indian
Malaysian
Maltese
New Zealand
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South African
Irish citizens in the UK

Classes of Citizens and Subjects

British citizen
British subject
British Overseas Territories citizen
British Overseas citizen
British National (Overseas)
British protected person
Commonwealth citizen

Rights and Visas

Right of abode
Indefinite leave to remain
Permanent resident (Australia)
Permanent resident (Canada)
Belonger status
UK Ancestry Entry Clearance

Acts

Ireland Act 1949
British Nationality Act 1981
Falkland Islands (1983)
Overseas Territories Act 2002
Canadian Citizenship Act 1946

Belonger status is a legal classification normally associated with British overseas territories. It refers to people who have close ties to a specific territory, normally by birth and/or ancestry. The requirements for belonger status and the rights that they confer, vary from territory to territory.

The rights associated with belonger status normally include the right to vote, to hold elected office, to own real property without the necessity for a license, to reside in that territory without immigration restrictions, and to freely accept employment without the requirement of a work permit. In general, to be born with belonger status a person must be born in a territory to a parent who holds belonger status. There are usually also some ways to pass belonger status to a child born outside the territory, but these are purposely limited, to minimize the number of belongers who will not live in the territory. In most independent countries, these rights would be associated with citizenship or nationality. However, as the British Overseas Territories are not independent countries, they cannot confer citizenship. Instead, people with close ties to Britain's Overseas Territories, all hold the same nationality: British Overseas Territories Citizen (BOTC). The status of BOTC is defined by the British Nationality Act 1981 and subsequent amendments.

BOTC, however, does not confer any right to live in any British Overseas Territory, including the territory from which it is derived. It is the possession of belonger status that provides this right. Acquisition of belonger status in a British Overseas Territory does not automatically confer BOTC, although most people holding such status are eligible for registration or naturalisation as a BOTC upon meeting the requirements of the 1981 Act. Similarly, it is possible to lose belonger status in a territory while retaining BOTC or British citizenship.

The British Overseas Territories Act 2002 also conferred British Citizenship upon BOTCs (other than those solely connected with the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus) which does provide for a right of abode in the United Kingdom. This conferral is in addition to their BOTC and was not reciprocal in nature, in that British Citizens did not receive any rights to reside in the Overseas Territories without permission.


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