The State Department has drastically reduced the fee for Americans seeking to formally renounce their U.S. citizenship, cutting the cost by approximately 80 percent.
After years of legal disputes with several organizations representing Americans who wish to relinquish their citizenship, the department published a final rule in the Federal Register on Friday. This change lowers the fee from $2,350 to $450.
The new fee, which took effect immediately, delivers on a promise made in 2023 that had not yet been implemented. This adjustment returns the cost to the same amount as when the State Department first began charging for formal renunciation in 2010.
Renouncing U.S. citizenship is an intensive and often protracted process. 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.
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 U.S. tax reporting requirements for American expatriates that angered many.
That dramatic fee increase drew significant opposition from groups such as the France-based Association of Accidental Americans, which represents people mainly living abroad whose U.S. citizenship is due purely to their having been born in the United States.
The association filed several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the fee, including one that remains pending that argues there should be no cost at all for renouncing one’s citizenship.
“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.”
In court, the association said since the 2023 announcement that the fee would be reduced at least 8,755 Americans had paid the full $2,350 to renounce their citizenship. The State Department did not provide numbers for the total number of Americans who have renounced their citizenship.
