Qualifying Commonwealth citizens are Commonwealth citizens resident in the UK who are entitled to register to vote in respect of all elections held in the UK, provided that they also fulfil the age requirement for registration and are not subject to any other legal incapacity.
Citizens of the following countries meet the nationality criteria to register in respect of all elections:
Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Brunei Darussalam, Cameroon, Canada, Cyprus*, Dominica, Fiji Islands**, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta*, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, Vanuatu, Zambia, Zimbabwe**.
[*]Although also EU member states, citizens of Cyprus and Malta are eligible to be registered to vote in respect of all elections held in the UK.
[**]Citizens of Fiji and Zimbabwe retain their voting rights despite Fiji being currently suspended from the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe having withdrawn from the Commonwealth in 2003. The voting rights are laid out in the British Nationality Act 1981 and are not affected by subsequent circumstances; they could only be altered by an Act of the UK Parliament.
Following the introduction of the Elections Act 2023 and subsequent Regulations, only certain European citizens are now permitted to register as electors.
Citizens of the following countries can be registered to vote but only in respect of local elections: Denmark, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
All other European citizens will not be able to register or vote and will be removed from the electoral registers, unless they have been continuously resident in the UK prior to December 2020 under the 'retained rights' system.