US to AUS dual national

Upvote:-3

So Australia is making it really difficult for lots of us dual nationals. You now must apply to renew passports in person - I have to travel 1000 miles to do this and pay $250 to boot. I would be happy to comply if Australia would make it easy to - like it used to be. When my Australian passport expires I am going to use my US passport with an ETA

Upvote:1

If you have Australian citizenship and can prove so, they can't really refuse to let you in; the only variable is how much time you need to spend in immigration limbo while they verify your identify and citizenship.

The airline you fly with will not be as lenient -- on the other hand they care only about having appropriate paperwork and will not begin to quiz you about what you're intending to do while in Australia.

So get an ETA for your American passport, and show that for boarding a plane. Upon arrival, present the passport you have (everything will be smoother when you have some form of travel identification) together with the citizenship certificate, and be prepared for spending some hours in a small room while the bureaucracy grinds.

Upvote:4

YMMV, but Australia does not automatically cancel previous visas when you get citizenship. So if your previous visa is still valid, and you used it to leave Australia without issues, odds are pretty high you can use it to enter Australia again. Pro tip: you can use VEVO to check if your visa is still valid: https://www.border.gov.au/Busi/Visa

You should not apply for an ETA, since you're not allowed to hold multiple simultaneous visas.

All that said, the right thing to do would be to apply for an Australian passport overseas. This involves quite a bit of paperwork for a first application though, and likely several weeks of waiting.

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