Guide to additional citizenships

In today's globalized world, a lot of people are unaware of other potential national citizenships they might be entitled to.

As Swiss employment lawyer and defense attorney, citizenships are very important and valuable in my daily practice. Obtaining the citizenship of a European country gives employees the option of working in Switzerland. At the same time, in criminal cases, citizenships typically define countries, from which a person cannot be extradited.

The media has given a lot of attention to services, who help people buy a new citizenship through investment. For many people, however, there are more interesting and less costly ways to claim an additional passport.

It typically depends on the ancestors of a person and the place of birth. For some countries, a naturalization is possible, even when a distant ancestor, such as a great-grandparent was born and/or lived in another country.

A prime example is Hungary. I have helped people obtain Hungarian citizenship based on ancestors who have lived in Hungary before 1920. But there are also other countries, where citizenship can be passed down over multiple generations. Other clients were born in the US or Canada but never registered as citizens.

The best thing a person interested in new citizenships can do, is to track their ancestors, starting with the parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents. Place of birth and all the places they have lived should be collected.

Often times it is impossible to prove, that a specific ancestor was a citizen of a country. The reason being, that passports are not at hand, anymore. However, birth certificate, marriage certificate, certificates of death, are often still at hand or can be found through ancestral research.

Such documents are excellent ground to get started with the hunt for an additional passport.

But also from a legal perspective, complicated research is often required. The law of citizenship is different for each country and typically has changed many times in the last 100 years. It is often underestimated, what chances lie in older citizenship laws.

I have also made the experience that many of my clients make false assumptions. E.g., that they have not renewed a citizenship they had as a child, and therefore, lost it. Which is typically wrong, as citizenships do not simply expire.