Americans may renounce citizenship for $450
WASHINGTON—The State Department has slashed by about 80 percent the fee for Americans to formally renounce their US citizenship.
After years of legal battles with several groups representing Americans wanting to give up their citizenship, the department on Friday published a final rule in the Federal Register that reduces the cost from $2,350 to $450.
The new fee, which took effect on Friday, had been promised in 2023 but had never been implemented. The cost is now the same as it was when the State Department first started charging Americans to formally renounce their citizenship in 2010.
Renouncing US citizenship can be an intensive and lengthy process. Applicants must repeatedly confirm in multiple written and verbal attestations to a State Department consular officer that they understand the implications of the step before being allowed to take a formal oath of renunciation. It must then be reviewed by the department.
No cost at all
The fee was raised from $450 to $2,350 in 2015 to cover the administrative expenses as the number of people wanting to renounce their citizenship surged in part due to new US tax reporting requirements for American expatriates that angered many.
That fee increase drew significant opposition from groups such as the Association of Accidental Americans, which represents people mainly living abroad whose US citizenship is due purely to their having been born in the United States.
