Family permit or Standard Visitor VISA?

[jelena21x]

Hello and thank you for taking time to read through this post.
I am EEA national, holding permanent residence card and currently applying for British Naturalisation. I would like to invite my dad who lives in Russia, to come and see me and his granddaughter, as we haven't seen him for a long time. As I started do some VISA research, I saw that there are two type of visas available to apply for. One of them is Standard visitor visa which costs approximately £87 and the second one is Family permit to join family member and it is free. I am stuck and can't decide on, which visa type would be more suitable for me? Would family permit give my father opportunity to stay and settle in the UK? I would love him to stay here with us, as his life over there is very bad. I would appreciate any type of advice from you and once again thank you for your time.

[Wanderer]

When do you expect to naturalise?

AIUI when you become British you won't be able to avail yourself of the EEA route until you exercise a treaty right again. Also there's dependency to consider.

We got a visit visa for my Russian MIL and it was totally easy.

Udachi...

[jelena21x]

I am planning to send my application off, literally tomorrow. Perhaps visitor visa will be more straightforward then.
Thank you for your advice )))

[noajthan]

If you remain an EEA national and can show your father is dependent on you you can bring him to live in UK as a dependent parent.
After 5 years he could acquire PR in UK and would no longer need you to be the sponsor.
You could then naturalise as a BC without a second thought.

If you naturalise as a BC (now) this door closes to you.

As a BC your only option, as mentioned above, is a succession of short-term visit visas; there is no option for long-term residency for father under the UK/visitor route.