Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia: citizenship for descendants

A passport that comes out of your own family history is neither a gift nor an act of grace. It is a right that already sits in your family and only needs to be established. Which countries take descendants back this way, and how far into the past they reach, is set out in the overview of citizenship by descent. The Baltic states are a case of their own: their descent law is the answer to occupation, flight and deportation.

Baltic citizenship by descent: the three countries at a glance

All three states tie citizenship back to who was a citizen before the Soviet occupation. In the detail, though, they treat your family, and your German passport, very differently.

The decisive difference is the second passport. Lithuania and Latvia have their own rules for families who fled the occupation, and expressly let them hold two passports. Estonia has no such exception, but it protects everyone who is Estonian by birth. Lithuania's Constitution sets out the principle that no one may be a citizen of Lithuania and of another state at the same time, except in the individual cases provided for by law. Descendants of emigrants are exactly such a case.

Lithuanian citizenship: restoration for descendants

Lithuania does not speak of naturalisation but of restoration, atkūrimas in Lithuanian. The idea behind it: your family's citizenship did not lapse with the occupation; it is being given back to you.

The right belongs to people who were Lithuanian citizens before 15 June 1940, and to their descendants, provided they had not already acquired Lithuanian citizenship before 1 April 2011. The right has no time limit, so there is no deadline to worry about. It is still urgent: documents are easiest to find while the older generation is alive and can tell the story.

The Migration Department names two restrictions expressly. Citizenship is restored only once. And it is not restored to anyone who has prepared, attempted or committed international crimes such as aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes, or crimes against the Republic of Lithuania.

Who counts as a descendant

For restoration, a descendant is the child, grandchild or great-grandchild of a person who was a Lithuanian citizen before 15 June 1940. The line therefore reaches three generations. If your great-grandfather was a citizen in Kaunas in 1939, you qualify. If it was your great-great-grandfather, he is one generation too far back for restoration.

Dual citizenship: the 11 March 1990 cut-off

As a rule, Lithuania requires you to give up any other citizenship before your Lithuanian citizenship is restored. That requirement does not apply, however, to people who were deported from occupied Lithuania before 11 March 1990 or who left Lithuania before that date, nor to their descendants.

An emigrant, in this sense, is someone who was a Lithuanian citizen before 15 June 1940, or is the descendant of one, who moved away from the present territory of Lithuania before 11 March 1990 to live permanently in another state, and whose permanent residence on 11 March 1990 was outside Lithuania.

One restriction affects many families: anyone who moved from Lithuania to the territory of the former Soviet Union after 15 June 1940 does not count as an emigrant in this sense. For that line, Lithuanian citizenship is restored only if you give up your other citizenship. Deportees are a different matter: anyone deported from occupied Lithuania, and their descendants, keep the second passport.

Which documents prove Lithuanian citizenship

Whether your ancestor was a citizen before 15 June 1940 is a question that paper answers. The Migration Department accepts as proof:

• Lithuanian internal or foreign passports issued before 15 June 1940,
• Lithuanian foreign passports issued by Lithuanian diplomatic missions or consulates after 15 June 1940,
• documents on service in the Lithuanian army or in the civil service,
• birth certificates and other documents that expressly state Lithuanian citizenship,
• identity cards issued in Lithuania before 15 June 1940.

If those papers are missing, evidence of school, work and life in Lithuania before the cut-off date can be considered, as can records of land ownership or of voting in elections.

For departure before 11 March 1990, examples include travel contracts from before 15 June 1940, ships' passenger lists, immigrant lists, archive certificates of a stay in displaced persons camps, immigration certificates and entries in foreign registers. The list is expressly open. How to find such papers in registry offices and archives is covered in genealogy for your passport.

Applying through MIGRIS, the consulate and the decision

You fill in the application yourself, online, in Lithuania's migration system MIGRIS, and give your own email address for correspondence. You then present the originals of the documents you uploaded, either at the Migracijos departamentas (the Migration Department) in Lithuania, where an authorised representative can also go on your behalf, or in person at a Lithuanian embassy or consulate.

If you choose the consulate, the Migration Department pre-checks your documents within one month. If it finds defects, you have one month to fix them. Once everything is in order, MIGRIS notifies you that you can book an appointment at the mission. The originals must be presented within four months (at the consulate, counted from that notification), or the application lapses.

The application is processed within twelve months of acceptance. The Migration Department reviews it and submits its opinion to the Minister of the Interior, who makes the decision.

Applying for Latvian citizenship: two routes for descendants

Latvia draws a clean line between families who fled the occupation and families whose ancestor was simply a citizen. Both routes lead to Latvian citizenship; they differ in the conditions for a second passport and in processing time.

Exile and deportation: registration under Section 8.1

Section 8.1 of the Latvian Citizenship Law applies to people who were Latvian citizens on 17 June 1940 and to their descendants. The condition is a declaration that the ancestor left Latvia between 17 June 1940 and 4 May 1990 to escape the Soviet or German occupation regime, or was deported, and for those reasons did not return to live in Latvia permanently by 4 May 1990.

Anyone who meets these conditions keeps the right to register as a Latvian citizen. The law says expressly that dual citizenship may arise on registration. The decision comes within four months.

Descendants of an exile can register themselves if they were born on or before 1 October 2014 and declare that at least one ancestor belonged to this group. For children under 15, the legal representative makes the declaration.

Continuity: descendants with no exile history

Not every family fled. Some emigrated before 1940, others left later by other routes. For them, Latvia's Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs relies on the continuity of the Latvian state and its citizenship throughout the occupation. On that view, citizenship did not lapse but passed on down the generations. The legal basis is Section 2(1)(2): a person is a Latvian citizen if their father or mother was a Latvian citizen at the time of their birth. If your ancestor was a citizen on 17 June 1940, the chain runs from them to you.

A second passport is possible on this route too, but only with certain countries. Section 9(2) lists the citizenship of another EU or EFTA state, of a NATO state, and of Australia, Brazil and New Zealand. Germany is a member of both the EU and NATO. In your application you confirm that you hold no citizenship of a country that is not on this list. The Office decides within one month of receiving the documents.

Language test only for Latvians and Livs

The law sets no language test for either route. A third route, for Latvians and Livs, is different: anyone who proves that an ancestor lived permanently in what was then Latvia from 1881 onwards, and who documents their belonging to the Latvians or the Livs, also needs Latvian language skills under Section 20 of the law, unless an exemption under Section 21 applies.

Documents, translation, submission

For registration and for the continuity route, the Office asks for essentially the same:

1. the application, with your name in Latvian spelling, date of birth, residence and contact details,
2. a copy of your passport or identity card,
3. your birth certificate and the civil-status records that trace the line to your ancestor, such as birth and marriage certificates,
4. proof that your ancestor was a Latvian citizen on 17 June 1940: civil-status records, data from the 1935 census, tax or conscription records from the Latvian State Historical Archives, or a pre-war Latvian passport,
5. for the exile route, the signed form on flight or deportation.

Foreign documents need a translation into Latvian. Legalisation is not required for public documents from the EU, the EEA, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, so German documents need no legalisation. You can submit by post to the Office in Riga or through a Latvian embassy or consulate.

Estonian citizenship: Estonian from birth

Estonia takes a different path. Its Citizenship Act, the Kodakondsuse seadus, has no registration for descendants and no restoration for grandchildren. For descendants, the only thing that counts is whether you are Estonian by birth.

A child is a citizen by birth if at least one parent is an Estonian citizen at the time of the birth. Anyone who was an Estonian citizen when the Act entered into force in 1995 is also a citizen. For you, this means the chain must be unbroken. If your mother was Estonian when you were born, you have been Estonian since birth, even if you were born in Hamburg and never held an Estonian passport. Citizenship is established by the Police and Border Guard Board, the Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet, which also issues the documents.

Strict rules, but protection for citizens by birth

Estonia is the strictest of the three. The Act says that an Estonian citizen may not be a citizen of another state at the same time. Anyone who acquires two citizenships as a minor must give one up within three years of turning 18. And anyone who later takes on a foreign citizenship loses the Estonian one.

At the same time, the same Act contains strong protection: no one may be deprived of Estonian citizenship acquired by birth. The provision on deprivation, which also covers the case of a second citizenship, expressly does not apply to people who are Estonian by birth. So someone who is German and Estonian from birth stands in a different position from someone who takes on the second citizenship later by their own choice.

Estonia offers restoration only to people who lost their citizenship as minors, and it requires you to live permanently in Estonia with a residence permit. For descendants, the route therefore almost always runs through birth.

E-Residency is not citizenship

Many people search for Estonia's digital citizenship and end up at e-Residency. It is a government-issued digital identity: you identify yourself online, sign documents electronically and set up a company. It does not give you a passport. The Act names only birth, naturalisation and restoration as routes to Estonian citizenship. What e-Residency does for entrepreneurs is explained, in German, in E-Residency in Estland, endlich verständlich.

Do you keep your German passport?

Yes. Since 27 June 2024, acquiring a foreign citizenship at your own request no longer costs you your German citizenship. For the Baltic states this was true even before: under the old law, too, anyone who acquired the citizenship of another EU member state kept their German citizenship. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are EU members. What the new German law means in detail is set out in dual citizenship for Germans.

So the question is not whether Germany lets you, but whether the Baltic country will take you with two passports. The answer depends on your family history:

• Lithuania: two passports if your ancestor emigrated or was deported before 11 March 1990. Otherwise Lithuania requires you to give up your other citizenship.
• Latvia: two passports on the exile route with no further condition; on the continuity route, as long as your other citizenship is that of an EU, EFTA or NATO state.
• Estonia: the law prohibits multiple citizenship but protects citizens by birth from deprivation.

As a German, you are an EU citizen anyway. The value lies elsewhere: in a second state that protects you as its citizen, in a second passport when the first is lost, stolen or held abroad, and in a right you pass on to your children. A passport is a right, not a permission.

When the paper trail falls short

Not every family has a passport from 1938 in the cupboard. War, flight and deportation destroyed papers, and some records sit today in an archive no one in the family knew about.

Lithuania keeps a separate route open for this case: if you lack documents on your ancestor's citizenship, you can have the fact established by a court. That is possible only after the Migration Department has examined your application and decided that the documents are insufficient. In Latvia, data from the 1935 census and records from the State Historical Archives expressly count too.

And if your claim cannot be proven in the end, the wish for a second passport is not settled. Naturalisation through residence and citizenship by investment do not exclude each other, they complement each other: naturalisation is the free route but takes years of real life in the country, while an investment programme buys you the time. How the two fit together is shown in CBI and naturalisation, and the programmes are in the comparison. If you are seriously thinking about moving to Riga or Vilnius, taxes, costs and residence are compared, in German, in Lettland oder Litauen? Auswandern ins Baltikum im Vergleich.

Passing the passport on to your children

A passport by descent is only fully used once it passes to the next generation. Here the three countries differ again.

In Latvia, a child is a Latvian citizen if a parent is a Latvian citizen at the time of the birth. The exile line is the strongest: anyone registered under Section 8.1 keeps both passports without having to choose later. This registration route of their own is open to descendants born on or before 1 October 2014. If your child is younger, their route runs through you: as the child of a Latvian citizen, they can acquire citizenship under the age of 15 together with an adult, as the Latvian Office describes it. For children who hold two citizenships through this route, Section 23(3) provides for a choice between their 18th and 25th birthdays, except in cases under Section 8.1 and Section 9(1). So check in good time which rule applies to your child.

In Lithuania, restoration ends with the great-grandchild of the former citizen. If your child is one generation further down, restoration no longer covers them; which route makes them Lithuanian is best settled before your own application. In Estonia, the only question is whether a parent is Estonian at the time of the birth. Once the chain is broken because a parent was not a citizen, it does not restart on its own.

How citizenship passes down the generations, and where chains break, is covered in passing on citizenship. What children with two passports can expect in Germany is described in children with two passports, and what a second passport does for the whole family is shown under Family. If you have Polish roots as well as Baltic ones, check Polish citizenship by descent alongside.

Frequently asked questions