Born abroad: how your child gets German citizenship too

A birth abroad is the moment you hand your child a second passport. Which countries grant citizenship by place of birth and how to plan the birth is covered in the article on birth tourism. The other half of the equation is German citizenship: it usually comes automatically, sometimes only with an application in the first year of life, and your child has to be able to prove it for a lifetime.

Citizenship by birth: when your child is automatically German

Germany grants citizenship first and foremost by descent. The core rule is in section 4(1) of the Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, StAG): a child acquires German citizenship by birth if one parent is German. Where the child is born plays no part. A hospital in Miami counts just as much as one in Munich.

That has two consequences many parents underestimate:

• No application needed. German citizenship arises by operation of law at birth. The German passport and the German birth certificate merely confirm it; they do not create it.
• One parent is enough. For children born today it makes no difference whether the mother or the father is German. If the parents are not married, there is one extra condition on the father's side: acknowledgement of paternity.

The opposite principle, citizenship by place of birth, applies in Germany only in a limited way: a child of foreign parents born in Germany becomes German if one parent has lived lawfully in Germany for five years and holds a permanent right of residence (section 4(3) StAG). For your planning, though, descent is what counts. It is the reason your child holds two citizenships from the very start when born in a jus soli country. Which countries those are is shown in the list of jus soli countries, and what your child receives automatically is explained under Dual citizenship by birth.

German parents, child born in the USA: two passports from day one

A birth in the USA is the most common case. US law is unambiguous: anyone born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction is a US citizen at birth under 8 U.S.C. § 1401(a). If one parent is German, German citizenship is added under section 4(1) StAG. Your child is therefore German and American from the first day, without having to apply for either.

In everyday life that means two passports with clearly divided roles. The German missions in the USA advise dual citizens to carry both: you enter and leave the USA on the US passport, and Germany on the German passport. For trips to third countries you use whichever passport has the better entry conditions there.

What dual German and US citizenship means in adult life, from the tax return to the question of whether you ever give up one of the passports, is explained by US Kanzlei on dual citizenship for Germany and the USA (in German). Planning the birth itself is covered under Giving birth in the USA.

The one-year deadline of section 4(4) StAG: when you must report the birth

Now comes the rule that no antenatal class mentions, yet it decides the German passport. It is also called the generation cut-off, and it hits exactly the families who have lived abroad before.

Under section 4(4) StAG, a child born abroad does not acquire German citizenship automatically if the German parent

1. was themselves born abroad after 31 December 1999, and
2. has their habitual residence abroad at the time of the child's birth.

This consequence does not apply if the birth is reported for registration in the German birth register within one year. The child then acquires German citizenship retroactively from birth. Nor does it apply if the child would otherwise be stateless. If both parents are German, the rule only bites if both of them meet the conditions.

Who the rule affects

The German missions in the USA put it plainly: the rule can affect any German who was born abroad and has a child there, regardless of the reason for or length of their stay abroad. So it makes no difference whether your parents were abroad back then as diplomats, expats or emigrants.

An example along the lines the German missions use: Klara is born in Spain in February 2000 because her father works there. Later she moves to the USA and has a son there. The boy is American at birth, but he acquires German citizenship only if Klara or the child's father reports the birth for registration in time. Had Klara been born in December 1999, her son would be German automatically.

The first generation this rule affects is now in its mid-twenties. That is exactly the age when the first children arrive. If you were yourself born abroad to German parents, look at your own year of birth first.

What counts as reporting the birth

What is meant is the application to register the birth in the German birth register. You can file it with the competent register office (Standesamt) in Germany or with the competent German embassy or consulate. For the deadline, what counts is the day the application is filed, not the day the register office completes the registration (section 36(1) of the Civil Status Act, Personenstandsgesetz, PStG). Once a complete application has arrived in time, a German passport can be issued on request.

Which register office is responsible is set out in section 36 PStG: first the office for the district where the child lives or last lived, otherwise the one where the applicant lives, and if there is none, the Standesamt I in Berlin, the central register office for Germans abroad. Which documents you need and in which order to obtain them is covered under The paperwork after a birth abroad.

The safe route: act early

A year sounds long, but with a newborn it isn't. The foreign birth certificate has to be ordered, often apostilled and translated, and an appointment at the embassy or consulate is not always available straight away. So plan the application for the first three months of your child's life. And if you are unsure whether the rule applies to you, simply apply. Registering the birth in Germany never does harm; missing the deadline costs the German passport.

Unmarried parents: when only the father is German

If the mother is German, the child becomes German at birth whether or not the parents are married. If only the father is German and the parents are not married, one more step is needed.

Under section 4(1), second sentence, StAG, paternity must then be effectively acknowledged or established by a court under German law. The acknowledgement must be made, or the court proceedings started, before the child turns 23. For children born since 1 July 1993, this is the route to a German passport through the father.

So the acknowledgement of paternity belongs in the folder you are putting together anyway for the birth certificate and passports. If you deal with it right after the birth, you won't be hunting in 20 years for documents nobody can find any more. If the one-year deadline of section 4(4) StAG also applies, it runs independently. Keep both conditions in view.

German mother, foreign father: what applies to older generations

Today it makes no difference whether the mother or the father is German. That was not always so, and many families only discover decades later that the grandmother could not pass on her German citizenship.

For children of married parents, according to the German missions, the rules were:

Anyone who missed out under the old law has had a second chance since 20 August 2021: acquisition by declaration under section 5 StAG. Entitled to make the declaration are people born after the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) came into force in May 1949, among them children of a German parent who did not become German at birth, children of German mothers who had lost their citizenship by marrying a foreigner, and the descendants of these people. Excluded is anyone sentenced to imprisonment or youth custody of at least two years for an intentional offence.

The right of declaration applies only for ten years after the rule came into force, so until August 2031. Declarations made from abroad are handled by the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt). For families with a German grandmother and an American or Brazilian grandfather, this is often the underrated route to an EU passport, and it is open to the grandchildren too. The wider picture is under Citizenship by descent.

Dual citizenship for children: both passports for life

If your child has German citizenship by descent and a second one by place of birth, it keeps both. German law never asked these children to choose, and since 27 June 2024 it has been built entirely around multiple citizenship:

• No more option requirement. Even children of foreign parents who became German by being born in Germany no longer have to choose between two citizenships. Section 29 StAG has been repealed.
• No loss on later acquisition. If your child later takes on a further citizenship by application, it no longer loses the German one. The retention permit has been abolished.
• Applies to you too. The same goes for you as parents: a second passport no longer costs you the German one.

For your child, the German passport is therefore a right that nobody takes away because of a second passport. What two passports bring a child in rights and duties, from military service to the question of which state protects it abroad, is covered under Children with two passports. What Germans need to know today about a second citizenship is explained in Dual citizenship for Germans. And what a son with two passports should know about conscription is under Conscription.

Anyone who stopped being German before 27 June 2024 by taking on a foreign citizenship does not automatically become German again. For these cases the Federal Foreign Office points to naturalisation under section 13 StAG for former Germans living abroad, provided the conditions are met.

Proving it: passport, birth certificate, certificate of citizenship

Your child is German, but it also has to be able to show it. Three documents do that, each with its own job.

For most families the passport and the foreign birth certificate are enough. Not everyone needs the certificate of citizenship; the Federal Office of Administration itself says it is not always necessary. It becomes important when an authority doubts the citizenship, or decades later when your grandchildren want to prove a claim through your child. Once you have it, keep it safe for good.

Later on, your child applies for a new German passport at the competent German embassy or consulate. How that works in practice is described in Renewing your passport abroad (in German).

Deadline missed or case unclear: what is still possible

If the one-year deadline has passed without an application and your child holds another citizenship, it has not become German. For this case the law also expressly rules out later acquisition by declaration under section 5 StAG. For people who have never been German and live abroad, naturalisation under section 14 StAG is possible only in very exceptional cases. That leaves the long route of moving to Germany: there, a right to naturalisation arises only after five years of residence.

Section 4(5) StAG sets out an important exception: the one-year deadline does not apply to descendants of people who acquired, or could have acquired, German citizenship by way of restitution under Article 116(2) of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz, GG) or section 15 StAG. Families whose ancestors were persecuted and stripped of their citizenship in the Nazi era are therefore not affected by this deadline.

If you are not sure whether your child is German, for example because dates of birth, places of residence or marital status are hard to reconstruct across generations, the determination procedure at the Federal Office of Administration helps. It settles bindingly whether German citizenship exists.

A further passport for the whole family

With the birth abroad, your child holds two citizenships, one by descent and one by place of birth. For you as parents, it usually stays at one passport. If you want to give the family a broader footing, add citizenship by investment: it gives parents and children a shared second passport that is tied neither to a place of residence nor to a country of birth.

If the baby arrives only after the application, some programmes allow it to be added later. With São Tomé and Príncipe, for instance, a newborn can be added up to its first birthday for 500 USD. Which programmes include children, parents and grandparents is shown in the overview under Family. How to combine a jus soli birth and a family passport into one plan for Latin America is also shown in the article Jus Soli und der Kind-Fast-Track (in German).

At best, the result is a child with three citizenships: German by descent, that of the country of birth by place of birth, and the family's from the programme. Each one is a right, not a permission, and none depends on the others. All it takes is that you know the one deadline that decides the German passport.

Frequently asked questions