The State Department is set to massively slash the cost of renouncing U.S. citizenship after a years-long legal battle.
As of April 13, U.S. citizens who wish to renounce their blue passport will now need to pay just $450 in consular fees, a more than 80 percent reduction from the previous $2,350.
It is a return to the 2010 fee, when a charge was first introduced for Americans who wished to renounce their citizenship, through a long and difficult bureaucratic process that requires significant work from consular officials.
To renounce citizenship, applicants must repeatedly confirm, through multiple written and verbal attestations to a State Department consular officer, their full understanding of the implications before they are permitted to take a formal oath of renunciation.
This oath then undergoes departmental review, with the full process often taking months. The risks of renouncing U.S. citizenship, the State Department warns, include requiring a visa to enter the United States as well as potentially becoming “stateless.”
In 2015, the fee was hiked to cover administrative expenses as the number of people seeking to renounce their citizenship surged, in part due to new U.S. tax reporting requirements for American expatriates that angered many.
But this drew significant criticism from groups, including the France-based Association of Accidental Americans, which represents people who mainly live abroad whose U.S. citizenship is due solely to having been born in the United States.
The association led several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the fee, including one that is still pending, which argues there should be no cost to renounce citizenship.
Living abroad with an ‘accidental’ U.S. citizenship can be a burden for many. The US is one of a handful of countries that levy taxes based on citizenship rather than geography, meaning that U.S. citizens living abroad must file a tax return.
“The Association of Accidental Americans welcomes this decision, which acknowledges the necessity of making this fundamental right accessible to all,” its president, Fabien Lahagre, said in a statement. “This victory is the direct result of six years of relentless legal action and advocacy.”
Since the 2023 announcement that the fee would be reduced, at least 8,755 Americans have paid the full $2,350 to renounce their citizenship, the association said in court. The State Department did not provide a total number of Americans who have renounced their citizenship.
