Ordinary adult citizenship applications

Adult and lawful ordinary residence

The general applicant must be at least eighteen, hold a valid passport and be ordinarily resident in Solomon Islands when applying. Section 16 requires ordinary residence for a total ten-year period immediately before application, with no presence as an unlawful non-citizen at any time during that period. It does not call the period ten years of permanent-resident status.

Ordinary residence is not a day-count shorthand

For section 16, ordinary residence means making Solomon Islands one's home, even if also living elsewhere, with continuity except for temporary absences. The section expressly does not apply to someone born in Solomon Islands or a child of a birth-citizen parent. Those exceptions are not a general reduction for other applicants.

Conversation, character and civic understanding

The ordinary applicant must understand the application, be of good character, speak English, Pidgin or a Solomon Islands vernacular sufficiently for normal conversation, respect local culture and understand citizenship's rights and duties. Section 14(3) provides a separate permanent or enduring incapacity branch, preserving its age, residence, continuing-ties and good-character conditions. No CEFR level is specified.

Evidence of continued residence or ties

The Commission must be satisfied that the general applicant is likely to keep residing in Solomon Islands or maintain a close, continuing relationship. Section 14(2)(d) specifies evidence relating to economic sustainability, capital property or financial contribution, with authentic information and original or certified documents; residence duration alone is insufficient.

Eligibility, decision and oath

The Commission may refuse even an eligible applicant on public-policy or national-interest grounds. An approved applicant normally becomes a citizen on taking the required oath or affirmation and citizenship pledge; the Act provides incapacity and included-child exceptions. Meeting the residence period is neither automatic citizenship nor a processing-time estimate.

Dual citizenship and voluntary renunciation

The government confirms operation of dual citizenship, and the posted Act's ordinary eligibility list does not require renunciation of another nationality. Voluntarily renouncing Solomon Islands citizenship instead requires Commission approval, adulthood and another nationality or its immediate acquisition; wartime renunciation also needs ministerial consent. Foreign military service and other statutory revocation grounds are separate. Bill 3/2026 proposes additional revocation grounds for application-based citizenship; this review does not establish that proposal as operative law.