As described in a previous post, I recently became a British citizen after 20 years of living here.

This post isn't about that, that post is about that. This post is about the actual process I had to go through in order to gain British citizenship.

The requirements

In order to obtain British citizenship, you need to

• Prove a mimimum length (in my case, 5 years) of continuous residency. In my case this was already completed as part of the "settled status" for EU citizens who arrived here before the Omnishambles.
• Prove some level of command of the English language.
• Pass the "life in the UK" test.
• Apply and provide various bits of evidence and a biometric scan.

Residency period

Well, I have lived in the UK continuously since 4 December 2005, so this one was already taken care of with some margin. Check!

Language test

Next thing you need is to prove that you're able to communicate in the English language.

You can prove it by having either:

• An English qualification at B1, B2, C1 or C2 level. or
• A degree taught or researched in English.

I failed to meet these requirements, so I had to go and take a test.

The definition of the requirements for level B1, from Wikipedia, is:

• Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc.
• Can deal with most situations likely to arise while travelling in an area where the language is spoken.
• Can produce simple connected text on topics that are familiar or of personal interest.
• Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes and ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

I did consider going for a test that actually tested for something that couldn't effectively be determined by the registration process itself. Pretty sure I could pass C2 blind drunk. But that costs more, is a longer test, and is not available at all in Scotland as far as I could tell. So B1 it was.

Of course, the only places in Scotland where you can take the test are Edinburgh and Glasgow. The test is called Secure English Language Test (SELT), and, well, more on that later.

Anyway, I had been pondering doing the citizenship thing for a while, and looked into where to take the test. Then as it happened, my father was coming to visit, and I was taking the train down to Edinburgh to meet him at the airport. So I figured I'd have a look, and it turned out there was a slot with Trinity College London (in Edinburgh) on that day - so I booked that and went down a bit early.

The test

The day of the test, I took the train down from Stonehaven. It was the day after the AC/DC concert at Murrayfield, so it felt like half of Edinburgh was wearing the t-shirt. I met up with a friend for lunch, then headed for the test.

Registration and security

The booking confirmation said to turn up 30 minutes before the listed test time. So I did, and was directed to a waiting area. Waited on a sofa for about 5-10 minutes before someone came over and directed me towards registration.

The venue is a generic training venue, so there are several different tests with different organisations going on on the same day, and it feels a bit chaotic.

Anyway, I find registration, am told to put all of my belongings (including backpack) in a ... "secure bag". Then I'm told in conflicting ways to put away my phone, but show that it's switched off first etc. Then I get told to sit down for a bit on a chair, before getting swiped with an airport-style metal detector wand, am told to take off my glasses, show behind my ears etc. It's not threatening, but definitely a bit dehumanising. This is the "Secure" part mentioned above.

After this, the registration itself. Mildly surprised that they just use my settled status e-Visa doing some facial recognition thing with a webcam. Never needed to show any physical ID.

After registration is done, I get very clear instructions on how the test is going to happen, and how I can expect a preliminary result over email the next day, and a final one a day or two later.

The actual test

The test happens in the first room down the hall to the left. Inside which is a tablet on a desk, and an English person down in England (because clearly you can't trust Scottish people to know English properly or something).

Anyway, he was a pleasant chap. The test is basically having a conversation for 10 minutes - no written aspect at all. The first part is about a subject you have to pick yourself. (Picking a topic and five subtopics is definitely the hardest thing about the test.) I picked traveling in Asia, and it turned out he had lived in Kyoto for a few years. Then some questions about your work (i.e. topic you know but haven't been able to prepare to answer specific questions for), and finally some random questions about hobbys or similar.

10 minutes passed quickly, so then I went back and collected my stuff, then walked up Arthur's Seat before walking down and taking the tram out to the airport. Did I mention the Edinburg Festival was on also? It was busy.

Got the preliminary result the next day, pass with distinction. (And the final result agreed.)

Cost: £150 (the trip to Edinburgh was happening anyway - would have been annoying otherwise)

Life in the UK Test

The Life in the UK test is supposed to be about various bits of history, and also about how modern UK society is set up.

Having found out I passed the language test, I figured I'd check how soon I could book a Life in the UK test. Turned out I could find one already on 2 September, in Glasgow. This happened to be the day after my father was flying home, so I booked it.

The alleged test centre in Aberdeen had no bookable times. At all. I think it's fake.

Preparing

There is an official set of books for studying, which I had bought a couple of years prior "just in case".

The book isn't rubbish. Clearly Welsh, Northern Irish, or Scottish people weren't involved in writing or reviewing it, but apart from that it's mostly a pretty decent overview of how the UK got to where it is.

It is however a bit dated, talking about troops currently deployed in Afghanistan and that the Eden Project is in Cornwall (they're building another in Dundee). There isn't an updated version.

I also found some free online tests and other resources that were really quite useful for practising.

The actual test

After I left my father in the check-in queue at Edinburgh airport, I took the tram back to Haymarket to jump on a train to Glasgow and spend the night in a hotel. Next day I met a friend for lunch, then walked over to the test centre. The test centre here was the Adelphi Centre, a venue for "conferences, meetings, seminars and training". It must have been a school at some point. It positively radiates "high school", inside and outside.

Registration

The registration process of the test was a bit less chaotic than the language test one. It felt like it was their venue.

There were already people in the test room, behind a door from registration, when I walked in.

I registered, did security (much like for the language test, but more relaxed and less confused, apart from how I had to repeat my birthdate what felt like 10 times, at different stages).

I was given a clear set of instructions of how it would all work, to a level that my autistic brain quite appreciated.

So, I headed into the test room, sat down in front of the computer I was directed to by the very friendly and polite official monitoring the room. Ultimately, I found the real test less challenging than I had the practice tests. There weren't as many "did king X do thing Y in 1542 or 1546?". The only question I ended up winging meant that I will until the end of time remembr that William Wordsworth had a thing for daffodils.

I ended up nearly feeling bad about how people who were agonising over answers when I walked in were still agonising when I left. The test monitor asked me if I wanted to revise my answers, but like, why would I?

So I walked out, grabbed my stuff, and turned my phone on. I already had an email waiting, telling me I had passed the test.

I do want to point out: from my exerience with the trial tests, I had not been confident about this. I had mostly booked the test so that I could run through the process and not be as stressed out on my "real" attempt. I was pretty fucking stressed. So I do feel quite good about the fact that I still passed on my first attempt.

Cost: £50 (+travel to/from Glasgow, +one hotel night) +£22.99 in November 2023 for the books (they cost more now)

The Application

So, having fulfilled the requirements for application, and having a couple of hours to wait for the train back to Stonehaven, it felt appropriate to walk over to the Citizen Bar near Queen Street Station, where I filled in and submitted my application on my laptop (while enjoying a few pints of tank lager).

The application is a bit like any onerous visa application. "List every trip abroad you have made in the last 5 years." I mean, Covid made this easier than it would have been otherwise.

Here is one of the weirdest requirements: "You must have been physically present in the UK exactly 5 years before the Home Office receives your application." This made it very handy to be applying in September 2025, because no one went fucking anywhere in the second half of 2020.

After I submitted the application, I received an email saying it had been received and that now I had to book an appointment to have my biometrics (and optionally documents) scanned.

Cost: £1,735 (yes, not a typo) +beer

Providing biometrics and supporting evidence

Since every government service in the UK needs to provide at least one layer outsourced to a private company to skimm money off the top, after the application, I was told to pick an appropriate "service level" from this rando private company and get in touch with them for the next step of my application.

While this introduced a little bit of delay, I could book into TLScontact in Aberdeen reasonably soon. Obviously the more expensive slots for the "and also scan my document for me" service were available a lot sooner than the alternative ones.

So, being close to the end of my tether, I paid for the more expensive one.

The event

So I turned up, waited standing for a while (10-15 minutes) outside the doors which had no bell and no one checked, then was let in for a much shorter seated wait, before being called into the room where both biometrics and scanning were happening in parallel.

The magic e-Visa over webcam thing happened again, no need to show any form of ID.

It was fairly straightforward, but it felt a bit blurred between which was biometric scanning and which was evidence scanning. Since I had paid for the evidence scanning, they were pretty clear that they would scan everything I handed them, including a printout of a certificate passing the language test that the instructions explicitly told me I needed to provide, even though that part is actually handled through a result code I fed into the online citizenship application itself.

After I went through with the process, I saw one of the operatives place something inside my (Swedish) passport. I assumed this would be some leaflet on what to expect next.

No, it was a "free SIM card, register here" spam booklet. And if that isn't a strong argument for Scottish independence, I don't know what is.

Cost: £50

The wait

Then, there is no status update at all. You can go online and look up the current "approximate processing times". I think it said 8 weeks.

Well on 24 November, the day before my birthday, I received an email congratulating me on my citizenship application having been approved. Simultaneously the email is an invitation to book a citizenship ceremony. Again, you have a free option (group ceremony) or a paid-for option (private ceremony).

I didn't really mind doing the group thing, but it would have been nice to be able to get it all closed out before the Christmas break, and the next group ceremony was going to happen mid-January. So I asked when they might be able to arrange a private ceremony, and the only date in December would have been the day after I got back from LPC in Tokyo. So group ceremony in January it was!

Cost: £0

Next

This has already gone on long enough, so I'll follow this up with an separate post about finally getting my UK passport.