Under United States federal law, a U.S. citizen or national may voluntarily and intentionally give up that status and become an alien with respect to the United States. Relinquishment is distinct from denaturalization, which in U.S. law refers solely to cancellation of illegally procured naturalization.
explicitly lists all seven potentially expatriating acts by which a U.S. citizen can relinquish that citizenship. Renunciation of United States citizenship is a legal term encompassing two of those acts: swearing an oath of renunciation at a U.S. embassy or consulate in foreign territory or, during a state of war, at a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in U.S. territory. The other five acts are: naturalization in a foreign country; taking an oath of allegiance to a foreign country; serving in a foreign military; serving in a foreign government; and committing treason, rebellion, or similar crimes. Beginning with a 1907 law, Congress had intended that mere voluntary performance of potentially expatriating acts would automatically terminate citizenship. However, a line of Supreme Court cases beginning in the 1960s, most notably Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) and Vance v. Terrazas (1980), held this to be unconstitutional and instead required that specific intent to relinquish citizenship be proven by the totality of the individual's actions and words. Since a 1990 policy change, the State Department no longer proactively attempts to prove such intent, and issues a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN) only when an individual "affirmatively asserts" their relinquishment of citizenship.
People who relinquish U.S. citizenship generally have lived abroad for many years, and nearly all of them are citizens of another country. Unlike most other countries, the U.S. does not prohibit its citizens from making themselves stateless, but the State Department strongly recommends against it, and very few choose to do so. Since the end of World War II, no individual has successfully relinquished U.S. citizenship while in U.S. territory, and courts have rejected arguments that U.S. state citizenship or Puerto Rican citizenship give an ex-U.S. citizen the right to enter or reside in the U.S. without the permission of the U.S. government. Like any other foreigner or stateless person, an ex-U.S. citizen requires permission from the U.S. government, such as a U.S. visa or visa waiver, in order to visit the United States.
Relinquishment of U.S. citizenship remains uncommon in absolute terms, but has become more frequent than relinquishment of the citizenship of most other developed countries. Between three thousand and six thousand U.S. citizens have relinquished citizenship each year since 2013, compared to estimates of anywhere between three million and nine million U.S. citizens residing abroad. The number of relinquishments is up sharply from lows in the 1990s and 2000s, though only about three times as high as in the 1970s. Lawyers believe this growth is mostly driven by American citizens at birth who were raised abroad and only became aware of their U.S. citizenship and the tax liabilities for citizens abroad due to ongoing publicity surrounding the 2010 Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. Between 2010 and 2015, obtaining a CLN began to become a difficult process with high barriers, including nearly year-long waitlists for appointments and the world's most expensive administrative fee, as well as complicated tax treatment. Legal scholars state that such barriers may constitute a breach of the United States' obligations under international law, and foreign legislatures have called upon the U.S. government to eliminate the fees, taxes, and other requirements, particularly with regard to accidental Americans who have few (see the Nottebohm case).
Terminology In general, "loss of citizenship" is a blanket term which may include both voluntary (citizen-initiated) and involuntary (government-initiated) termination of citizenship, though it is not always easy to make a clean distinction between the two categories: automatic loss of citizenship due to an initial action performed voluntarily could be seen either as "voluntary loss" or "involuntary loss". Citizen-initiated termination of citizenship may be referred to as "renunciation", "relinquishment", or "expatriation", while the term "denationalization" refers to government-initiated termination. and
In U.S. law, "relinquishment" and "renunciation" are terms used in Subchapter III, Part 3 of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (). The term "expatriation" was used in the initial version of that act (, 268) up until the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1986, when it was replaced by "relinquishment".; ; . See The State Department continues to use both the terms "expatriation" and "relinquishment", and refers to the acts listed in as "potentially expatriating acts". "Renunciation" specifically describes two of those acts: swearing an oath of renunciation before a U.S. diplomatic officer outside of the United States, or before a U.S. government official designated by the Attorney-General inside the United States during a state of war. "Relinquishment" refers to all seven acts including renunciation, but some sources use it contrastively to refer solely to the other five acts besides renunciation.7 FAM 1222(d) and In contrast, "denaturalization" is distinct from expatriation: that term is used solely in Subchapter III, Part 2 of the 1952 INA () to refer to court proceedings for cancellation of fraudulently procured naturalization.
Relinquishment of United States nationality encompasses relinquishment of United States citizenship. "Nationality" and "citizenship" are distinct under U.S. law: all people with U.S. citizenship also have U.S. nationality, but American Samoans and some residents of the Northern Mariana Islands have U.S. nationality without citizenship. Both citizens and non-citizen nationals may undertake the process of relinquishment of United States nationality. A citizen who undertakes that process gives up both citizenship and nationality. It is not possible to relinquish U.S. citizenship while retaining U.S. nationality.
People who relinquish U.S. citizenship are called "relinquishers", while those who specifically renounce U.S. citizenship are called "renunciants".7 FAM Exhibit 1227(A) and 1227(B) The informal term "last-generation Americans", wordplay on terminology for immigrant generations (such as "first-generation Americans" or "second-generation Americans"), is also used. The terms "expatriation" or "expatriates" may lead to some confusion, as in modern parlance an "expatriate" ("expat") is simply a person who resides abroad, without any implication of giving up citizenship.
Numbers
From 2014 to 2016, an average of about five thousand U.S. citizens gave up their citizenship each year. These numbers have risen by nearly ten times between 2005 and 2015, though they remain only about three times the annual numbers in the 1970s.
In absolute terms, few people relinquish U.S. citizenship or citizenship of any other developed country; in almost all countries, the number of people who give up citizenship each year is small relative to the total number of citizens abroad, let alone the total number of citizens in that country. In a 2017 study of citizenship relinquishments in twenty-eight countries, mostly OECD members, the U.S. came in sixth place in relative terms (i.e. relinquishers as a proportion of citizens abroad), behind Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Estonia, and Japan; and second in absolute numbers behind South Korea. The study author noted that emotional factors and prohibitions on dual citizenship may affect the rates of citizenship relinquishment, and that military conscription may explain the high rates in the other top countries besides the United States.For general discussion of conscription in the other countries mentioned, see Estonian Defence Forces#Conscription, conscription in Singapore, conscription in South Korea, and conscription in Taiwan (Japan does not practice military conscription). For general discussion of the treatment of multiple citizenship in those countries, see Estonian nationality law#Dual citizenship, Japanese nationality law#Dual nationality, Singaporean nationality law#Dual citizenship, South Korean nationality law#Dual citizenship, and Nationality law of the Republic of China#Dual nationality and naturalization. Peter Spiro notes that most countries with military conscription provide exemptions for non-resident citizens. Regardless of the reasons, even for South Korea, the top country, only about 0.7% of citizens abroad relinquish each year, while for the U.S. the rate is only about 0.1%, though in both cases unreliability of population figures for citizens abroad means the rates are open to question. One former Foreign Service Officer, noting that State Department estimates of the population of U.S. citizens abroad have grown from 3.2 million in 2004 to 9 million in 2017, argues that these estimates were "generated to justify consular assets and budget" and so "may be self-serving".
The graph above presents statistics on relinquishment of U.S. citizenship from three sources.A similar chart which combines the State Department data and the Quarterly Publication up to 2017 can be found in The blue bars are State Department statistics from 1962 to 1994 obtained by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT). During that period, a total of 37,818 U.S. citizens renounced or abandoned their citizenship. It is not clear which of these statistics refer solely to renunciants or include other relinquishers as well; the JCT stated that there were inconsistencies between the definitions used for the statistics for 1962 to 1979 and for 1980 to 1994. The green bars reflect the number of records of people who have renounced U.S. citizenship added each year to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (2006–present).Section "Active Records in the NICS Index" in NICS Operation Report for years 2003/2004 (p. 50), 2005 (p. 38), 2006 (p. 40), 2007 (p. 34), 2008 (p. 34), 2009 (p. 24), 2010 (p. 22), 2011 (p. 21), 2012 (web page), 2013 (web page), 2014 (p. 29), 2015 (p. 21), 2016 (p. 26), 2017, and 2018. This series includes renunciants and not other relinquishers (see below). The FBI added a large backlog of entries in 2012, so figures from that year may not be comparable to other years. The red bars reflect the number of entries in the Internal Revenue Service's Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate (1996–present).See Quarterly Publication of Individuals Who Have Chosen to Expatriate#Statistics for citations to each of the 89 editions of the publication, including those on which the 2017 and 2018 data is based. Statistics for 1996 and 1997 may not be comparable to later years. Lawyers disagree whether this publication includes the names of all former citizens, or just some (see below).