American citizen getting a German passport. Anyone done this?
 

I originally posted this on ADV, but the crowd here is much more international, so I might get some personal experiences.

I'm a US citizen by birth. Grew up in the US. I have German heritage. My maternal grandfather was born in Germany and moved to the US pre-WWI with his family.

From the citizenship rules I've read on the German embassy website, I might qualify for German citizenship if I can prove my heritage and also pass a German language test. I do have some old family documents, and I have a bit of experience with the German language, though a lot more study would be necessary.

I live in Denver, and it appears there is a German consulate here, so I might eventually make an appointment and ask directly, but right now I'm simply looking for the experience of others.

Has any other US citizens gotten foreign citizenship and passport?

I'm looking into future travel plans, and having a German passport might be useful in some parts of the world. Also, I've often thought it would be neat to live and work somewhere in the EU, and having German citizenship would be very helpful for that, though Brexit is a bummer.

Any ideas, experiences, or other thoughts?

Jamie

Ahh, you aren't fleeing your big boss who is incidently also of German heritage :devil2:



The barrier is high, albeit not quite as high for US citizens, I presume. What is your occupation? Being highly specialized in a technical career is generally useful (green card). The easiest is to marry a German woman :innocent: Like I did :clap:But that wasn't planned - things just developed like that ;o)


Finding a job here definitely would make things easier. In my case - as a South African citizen I worked for an international company and they organised a work permit for me. After a couple of years I was entitled to apply for the local citizenship, but in the mean-time I had got married here. So that meant no probs at all.

As far as I can tell German citizenship through relatives is restricted to the first generation only - i.e. one or other of our parents needs to be a German citizen.

https://www.germany-visa.org/immigra...n-citizenship/

Those rules do seem very, err, bureaucratic. :rolleyes2: As a family we've been going through the process of gaining Irish passports for myself and my children (my wife doesn't qualify) for a few years now and the requirements are so much easier. If you have a parent born anywhere on the island of Ireland - north or south - you're automatically Irish and just need to apply for a passport. If you have a Irish grandparent (as my kids do), send in the paperwork to prove it and you'll get citizenship. Then apply for a passport in the usual way. Beyond grandparent level it doesn't work and neither does it if the parent dies before you apply. It takes a while as all these things do (20 months for my son, daughter's application still in the system) but no tests or employment records etc.

My son has worked in Sweden for four years on his UK passport and ticks all the boxes for Swedish citizenship by naturalisation. The application does take about three years to go through but unlike Germany there's no language test or Swedish history/ lifestyle exam to pass.

Faced with Brexit uncertainty he applied about this time last year and kept his fingers crossed as his current work contract runs out about now. Three months in though the Swedish govenment had a change of mind/ heart and fast tracked the qualifying Brits in a few weeks. Citizenship came through in three weeks and his passport in two more. So at the moment he has UK, Irish and Swedish passports and no one only requirement/ restriction. If he had to choose only one I'm pretty certain he'd stick with the UK for work reasons.

Cholo is right about moving cautiously. It's still possible to hold dual citizenship which includes the US, but tax rules were changed a couple of years back and many decided to renounce their US citizenship for this reason alone--both my sisters included. I forget the details, but in any case OP will want to research this carefully themselves--including projecting into the future their own primary and backup plans.

I'm under no illusions about any advantages of living in the US vs. anyplace else you could name. Still, I'd look for a way to dip my toe in the water before making any lasting decisions.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Interesting discussion. Can't help the OP with his question re Germany, but a few years back I applied for my Canadian citizenship. According to the rules - I already was a citizen (birthright/1st generation - the paperwork actually listed that I was a citizen since my birthdate) so I just went through the process of making it official. Attained my SIN number and CA passport. I had always been interested in doing it - and with a lot of time on my hands dues to an injury I figured that was a good time.

I hadn't even considered giving up my US citizenship and I didn't think or even consider there might be ramifications to being and/or maintaining dual citizenship - especially taxation. May have to do some digging.

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 bier

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 :cool4: Probably longer than you're treading the earth :innocent:


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.

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.

Contact the German authorities
 

Any ideas, experiences, or other thoughts?

Jamie[/QUOTE]
https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/f...igkeit_en.html
https://de.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen...l-nationality/

I would contact the German and US authorities and get info from the horses mouth. I have an Irish and British passport, I have had the Irish passport for more than 30 years. Its fine, and also has the advantage that for example an Indian visa is cheaper with the Irish passport than the British one-colonial legacy I suppose, and everyone loves the Irish...contact the German AND your own countries authorities and good luck
Best regards
James