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My daughter has both a Chinese and British passport having received the British passport recently and had the Chinese passport for a while.

I've heard about people in situations where children have a British (for example) passport and a Chinese HuKou being granted a travel permit. However, having reached out to the local government agencies here in China, they've advised that my daughter would not be granted one as she has a Chinese passport and therefore any travel abroad will be granted based on her chinese nationality.

I wanted to know if anyone has experienced a situation similar to this and what is the best way to travel to the UK? The UK won't issue her a visa as she is, in their mind, British. China will not issue her a permit to leave and are of the opinion that should she want to visit the UK, she should apply for a visa.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you in advance

Matthew Worrell
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    Welcome to Travel.SE. The easiest option is to travel via a third country and switch passports there: https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/52100/i-have-two-passports-nationalities-how-do-i-use-them-when-i-travel – lambshaanxy Jul 05 '23 at 11:10
  • Thank you for your response. Logistically, how would this work with a third country if they stamp the Chinese passport upon arrival? Surely exiting this country would need to be done on the same passport as they'd require to see the entry stamp to ensure you've stayed there legally... – Matthew Worrell Jul 05 '23 at 11:27
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    You can show a different passport to exit immigration (if applicable) and to the airline staff. You can show multiple passports to exit immigration if you want. – MJeffryes Jul 05 '23 at 11:40
  • @MatthewWorrell The link above goes into this in detail, but you can show different passports at checkin and immigration. – lambshaanxy Jul 05 '23 at 12:51
  • Thank you for the responses, they are truly appreciated. I wonder if anyone has any real-life experiences with doing things this way. – Matthew Worrell Jul 05 '23 at 13:58
  • My worry would be that an exit stamp would be placed on, for example, her Chinese passport when we leave, an entry stamp to 3rd country put on her British passport when we arrive and again when we leave with the only stamps on her chinese passport being the entry and exit ones from China. Surely this would seem suspicious? – Matthew Worrell Jul 05 '23 at 13:59
  • @MatthewWorrell Why would this be suspicious? She left China, and later returned to China. It'd be suspicious if the stamps showed otherwise. – DavidRecallsMonica Jul 05 '23 at 16:11
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    Hmmm... How come she kept her Chinese citizenship after becoming a UK citizen? Generally, China doesn't allow dual citizenship and accepting new citizenship leads to an automatic expatriation from Chinese citizenship – littleadv Jul 05 '23 at 17:55
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    Was she born with both Chinese and British citizenship? If so, was she born in China or outside China? – user102008 Jul 05 '23 at 18:09
  • Yes. She was born in China. – Matthew Worrell Jul 05 '23 at 23:15
  • Apparently, accepting new citizenship/receiving a passport from another country does not lead to the giving up of Chinese citizenship. Rather, as China do not accept dual nationality, although she has a British passport, the fact that she also has a Chinese one means that in china's eyes, she is just Chinese – Matthew Worrell Jul 05 '23 at 23:17
  • @MatthewWorrell you should check that again because that's not true – littleadv Jul 06 '23 at 07:05
  • Seems as if its a grey area as what I'm saying was told to me by the officers at the PSB yesterday – Matthew Worrell Jul 06 '23 at 07:48

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I believe that, since your daughter was born in China with both Chinese and foreign nationalities, the "proper" course of action would have been to apply for a Chinese Entry/Exit Permit for her, instead of a Chinese passport. She can use the Entry/Exit Permit in combination with her foreign passport to exit China. And then once abroad, to return to China, you would apply for a Chinese Travel Document for her at a PRC consulate abroad. The Chinese Travel Document can be used in combination with a foreign passport to enter and exit China.

See this FAQ from the PRC embassy in Zambia (translated from Chinese):

  1. I am a Chinese citizen. My partner is an X country national. Our child was born in China. Now we want to visit X country. What document should the child apply for?

    According to our country's nationality law, your child should be recognized as possessing Chinese nationality. You can apply for entry/exit documents from the public security department. For details please inquire with the public security entry/exit administration department of county-level or higher for your place of residence.

For example, here is the page from the Beijing public security bureau about applying for Entry/Exit Permits. (translated from Chinese):

Acceptance conditions

Hong Kong and Macao residents whose Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents was lost, damaged, or expired in the Mainland and need to return to Hong Kong or Macao; Those where it is inconvenient to leave the country with an ordinary passport, including: 1) Children who have obtained foreign passports, one parent is a foreigner and one parent is Chinese, and are recognized as having Chinese nationality in accordance with the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China; 2) Children born abroad to parents who have not settled abroad, who have obtained foreign passports, who returned to China with the "People's Republic of China Travel Document", and the Travel Document has expired and they want to leave the country.

However, the problem is that your daughter already got a Chinese passport. I don't know if this will prevent her from getting an Entry/Exit Permit. I don't know if there is a way to "undo" getting the Chinese passport.

user102008
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  • Thank you for the lengthy and detailed response. Yes, this seems to be the case. In hindsight, we would not have applied for the Chinese passport but as we already have this, we seem to be stuck in even more of a grey area – Matthew Worrell Jul 07 '23 at 01:30