Confirming Australian Citizenship Confirming Australian Citizenship

​​The information on this page is for businesses or organisations verifying Australian citizenship for employment purposes. 

There are different ways that a person may have become an Australian citizen, either:

• by application or
• automatically.

Different people may need to provide different documents to confirm their Australian citizenship.

See Become an Australian citizen and Get a citizenship certificate.

Australian citizenship by application

A person may become an Australian citizen by application. They can provide one of the following documents to confirm their Australian citizenship:

• an Australian citizenship certificate
• an Australian citizenship by descent or adoption extract
• a current Australian passport.

Australian citizenship by birth

Arrangements for acquiring citizenship by birth have changed over time. This impacts what documents a person needs to provide to confirm their Australian citizenship.

If a person was born in Australia before 20 August 1986, they can provide one of the following documents to confirm their Australian citizenship:

• an Australian citizenship certificate
• a current Australian passport
• a full Australian birth certificate.

If a person was born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986, they can provide one of the following documents:

• an Australian citizenship certificate
• a current Australian passport.

If the person does not have one of these documents they can provide the following instead:

• a full Australian birth certificate, and
• documents that show at least one parent (named on the birth certificate) was an Australian citizen at the time of the person's birth. They can do this by providing: 
  
  • ​their parent's Australian citizenship certificate that shows they acquired citizenship before the person was born or
    
  • ​thei​r parent's Australian birth certificate that shows their parent was born in Australia before 20 August 1986 or
    
  • if the person's parent was also born in Australia on or after 20 August 1986, documents to show the person's grandparent was an Australian citizen at the time of the person's birth, such as their grandparent's Australian citizenship certificate or Australian birth certificate.