Most countries are not as intrusive as the US. My sisters live and work in Canada, and the US government decided to make this difficult and expensive. I doubt that the Canadian government is interested in doing that to you as long as you live in the States. Just beware if you're thinking that with dual citizenship you can easily live and work in Canada.

The OP is thinking of living and working in the EU, so the same cautions apply.

Until recently it wasn't quite so onerous, although even then the US levied taxes on money earned elsewhere, which AFAIK most countries don't do. I once had American Depository Receipts on some dividend-bearing British stocks; I had to pay US income tax on those dividends every year along with filling out additional forms (and was no longer eligible for the easier short-form tax filings).

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

That is - and thanks. I've lived in the States my whole life - but I definitely have considered moving to and working in Canada. Big fan of western CA in general and always thought it would be interesting to live there. It was another motive to getting citizenship stuff taken care of - thinking it would make things pretty easy.

I'll be certain to dig thoroughly should the opportunity present itself.

Sorry OP - slight hijack - back to your question at hand re Germany

I'm curious how long ago you got married. From the information I've found, marriage to a German citizen no longer gives the spouse automatic citizenship, even though it used to... and even then, it only applied to non-German women marrying a German man.

Anyway, this doesn't apply to me as I have no plans to marry a German woman. Not that I don't like German women.
Yes, I've found a bit of conflicting information.

Here's a link which describes the requirements to obtain German citizenship through ancestry: https://www.germany.info/us-en/servi...-obtain/919576

There are some date restrictions as laws changed through the years, but I seem to fit the listed requirements.


I'm definitely moving cautiously. Thus, this thread. It's a complicated and confusing process, so I was looking to see if anyone has navigated the waters.

I don't plan to give up US citizenship, and I'm aware that the US taxes its citizens no matter where they live. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

As I've said, right now this is just a brain-storming exercise. The seed for this idea was probably ten years ago or so when I lived in Germany as a student. A couple others suggested to me that I might qualify for citizenship if I had documented ancestors from Europe. And then more recently I've read some travel blogs of people who have dual-citizenship, and then finally a friend of mine who moved to the US from the Philippines retained her Filipino citizenship so she could easily travel and live back home if she chose.

It just seems like... if I can, why wouldn't I do it? It might just open a few more doors.

Thanks for all the helpful comments and ideas.

Jamie

That's quite a while ago Probably longer than you're treading the earth


At least one rule has changed in the last few years: Nowadays men and women are equal before the law, meaning that if either of your parents have (had) German citizenship entitles you to apply. Re language test - there you're only expected to have basic knowledge of German.

__________________
Only when we pause to wonder
do we go beyond the limits of our little lives.
(Rod McKuen)

I didn't think about it, although I also have German roots. It seems to me that in our time it is much more useful to get a NEXUS card. Recently, a friend of mine suggested that I go to Vancouver for a vacation with his parents. Mountains, ocean, sandy beaches, rain forests, lakes, bays, cliffs-all within minutes and hours of downtown Vancouver. I immediately agreed, because I still did not want to stay at home all the holidays. A week before the trip, I couldn't find my passport. It is likely that I lost it and it was already impossible to find it. It was impossible to make it in a week. My mother advised me to do https://nexus-card.com/ which would allow you to travel without a passport. And I did it. I was able to spend an unforgettable vacation and was very satisfied.