Dual Citizenship Eligibility and Tax Concerns

In my last article, I detailed my personal process to achieving dual citizenship. This also included how much money I spent throughout said process. It took me over two years and thousands of dollars, which, for the record, is unusually fast! And cheap! For other people who can take the same citizenship route I did, they can definitely get it even quicker and cheaper. All of my first cousins have dual citizenship eligibility, which is at least 25 at last count. However, I think my brother and I are the only ones who have applied for it, let alone were granted it.

Having dual citizenship eligibility obviously opens a lot of international doors. It gives you privilege and opportunity only a very tiny percentage of people enjoy. If you can become a dual citizen, you have that much more immaterial wealth at your disposal. Here’s how you might be eligible, and, as an American dual citizen, how you won’t need to worry about double taxation.

Checking Dual Citizenship Eligibility

Note that this is NOT an article explaining how easy it is to become a dual citizen. Any honest immigrant, expat, or other dual citizen will tell you this: the average citizenship process is HARD. For most people, it’s miserable drudgery that takes several years to complete, and that’s if you manage to succeed in some capacity. It takes appointments, follow-ups, and wrangling with bureaucratic red tape at absolute minimum.

My path to citizenship is a serious outlier in terms of work, stress, documents required, and financial payments. It took me two years and less than $3,000 to get this. That relatively small investment was only possible because the citizenship by descent laws work well in my favor. Your mileage may vary; this is not a process that you’ll complete in a matter of days or weeks.

With that said, it’s worth it to research country laws on who they’ll grant citizenship to. Because I was born in the United States, I automatically get American citizenship. That also grants me all the benefits of American citizenship; given America’s world superpower status and infrastructure, that translates to many good educational and career opportunities. Plus, great libraries everywhere I go!

Another great benefit of American citizenship is the ability I have to become a dual citizen; some countries, like Singapore, do not allow you to be a dual citizen. This means I can keep my status as a U.S. citizen while gaining citizenship status elsewhere. This status change is possible in a few different ways.

Dual Citizenship By Descent

The way for me was citizenship by descent. Several countries have jus sanguinis citizenship laws, or “right of blood,” which grants citizenship to anyone whose parents were citizens at the time of birth. Irish law dictates that you can become a citizen if one of your parents or grandparents were born in the Republic of Ireland. In my case, both of my maternal grandparents were born there. As long as I could prove my recent Irish ancestry, I was in.

Through my research, I also realized I’m eligible for Italian citizenship. Italy’s citizenship laws state that anyone with an Italian parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent is eligible. My paternal grandfather was the son of Italian immigrants, so I could have pursued EU citizenship through that part of my lineage as well.

I chose not to pursue Italian citizenship because that would have been a lot harder to legally prove, going back an extra generation. Plus, the process would have taken longer just because Italy processes documents so much more slowly. I would have had to at least double my wait time for citizenship had I tried wrangling with Italian bureaucracy. I feel more connected to Ireland than Italy anyway, so that wasn’t a hard decision to make.

Other Paths to Dual Citizenship Eligibility

If I wasn’t eligible for citizenship by descent, I would have looked at other avenues to see what was doable. Some folks gain dual citizenship eligibility via marriage to a citizen; others can pretty much purchase residency – and eventual citizenship – if they have at least a quarter million dollars to invest in their country of interest. Citizenship via investment really proves money can get you anything in this world; there’s at least one uber-millionaire who invested his way to securing EIGHT different citizenships.

I’m not a millionaire and marriage makes me nervous, so the next likely avenue would be dual citizenship eligibility through naturalization. Several countries offer a path to citizenship if you’ve spent a certain number of years living there. While this would have required I move outside the US and magically find a job a country’s locals can’t already fulfill, it was still good to keep in mind.

Dual Citizenship Eligibility: No Tax Concerns For Me

Fun fact: Ireland will only tax me if I reside in the Republic of Ireland. I can hold onto my Irish citizenship and live elsewhere without needing to pay taxes; their tax code, like most countries, is based on your residency status, not your citizenship. While I live in the US, I don’t need to worry about getting taxed twice.

Paying my fair share in taxes is totally fine with me. Has been since the beginning. However, it might be a concern if I move abroad. This is because the US has, frankly, greedy laws around taxing citizens regardless of residency. It’s one of only two countries that tax you based on citizenship instead of where you live (the other being Eritrea).

HOWEVER, you can qualify to be exempt from paying taxes abroad as long as you make less than $120k (as of last year). This is called the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.

Per the State Department website:

If you are a U.S. citizen or a resident alien of the United States and you live abroad, you are taxed on your worldwide income. However, you may qualify to exclude your foreign earnings from income up to an amount that is adjusted annually for inflation ($107,600 for 2020, $108,700 for 2021, $112,000 for 2022, and $120,000 for 2023). In addition, you can exclude or deduct certain foreign housing amounts.

You still have to report your income, aka file a tax return. It’s just that the taxation is a better approach than what surface level articles/other hearsay will state. That’s exactly how foreign income exclusion works. You make under $120k a year, you disclose your foreign income, you declare your tax residency outside the US, and that’s that.

I am not at all concerned about double taxation. I don’t foresee myself making more than what the exclusion specifies. If I do? Then I’ll have enough money to either pay someone else to deal with it, or dry my tears with that extra cash.

How Many People Get Citizenship

I’ll wrap up this article by noting how many people receive citizenship every year. The US usually swears in at least 800,000 new citizens each year (specifically 878k in 2023). With a population of around 335 million, America increased its citizenship numbers by ~0.26% last year. Ireland’s population sits at about 5 million, with roughly 20,000 new citizens (likely) accepted in 2023; that means Ireland has increased its citizenship numbers by ~0.4%, or at two-thirds of a higher rate than America’s.

When there’s talk about immigration in America, it’s often spoken with negativity. What isn’t spoken about? Dual citizenship – and that’s because it’s very, very difficult to achieve for most people. Getting citizenship means immigrating legally, as the overwhelming majority already do. But immigrants are all lumped into “problem” categories via our most prominent politicians and news media outlets – and only sometimes get more specified to illegal immigration. I view it as a dog whistle to mask anti-diversity and I’m sick of it.

It’s not immigration or citizenship status that determines what one’s actions will be. What does, in my opinion, is lack of accessibility and/or lack of education. The more someone gets to know others with different backgrounds and norms than them, the richer their lives will be. Historically speaking, we’re in an era more welcoming of dual citizenship eligibility than practically any other. That’s something to celebrate, not minimize or denigrate.

The Point of All This

My hope in sharing this is to get others to think about themselves as more than the country they’re most familiar with. Think about what might be different if you go visit somewhere far away from what you’re familiar with. Get a passport and use it; you’ll understand the world better when you do. Barring that, just visit a state you’ve never seen before. If I can drop just one grand on a cross-country road trip, you can make a smaller trip for much less. The money you save up and spend on travel will do you so much more good than just a break from the same-old.

Cover image credit: via Wikimedia Commons