The German retention permit: why you no longer need it

A passport is a right, not a permission. Yet for decades Germans lived with a strange exception: anyone who wanted a second right first had to ask permission to keep the first. That permission was the retention permit (Beibehaltungsgenehmigung). Since 27 June 2024 it has been history, and with it falls the last German hurdle between you and a second passport.

Three questions still trouble many people: What happens to an application that was still pending? What is an old certificate worth now? And where does all this leave those who lost their German passport before the reform?

What the retention permit was

Until 26 June 2024 the Nationality Act (Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz, StAG) contained a hard rule. Under the former section 25 StAG, a German lost their citizenship on acquiring a foreign one if that acquisition happened on their own application. Whether it was US naturalization after years in the country or a passport through investment in the Caribbean, acquiring a citizenship by application as a rule cost you your German one in the very same moment.

Only one exception could protect you. Anyone who had received written permission to retain German citizenship from the competent German authority before acquiring the other one stayed German. For Germans abroad, that authority was the Federal Office of Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt) in Cologne; for Germans living in Germany, it was the local nationality authority. The permit had to be in hand before the foreign citizenship took effect. Take the oath one day too early, and your German passport was gone.

The rule applied in this form from January 2000 until its repeal in June 2024. Acquisitions before 1 January 2000 fell under even older provisions of the earlier nationality law (Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz), including the so-called domestic residence clause (Inlandsklausel).

What chance a retention application had

Anyone who applied wanted to know one thing above all: what are my chances? Rightly so, because the permit was not a form you simply picked up. The law required public and private interests to be weighed against each other. The Federal Office of Administration lists the conditions that applied until 26 June 2024:

• A tangible advantage: you had to show credibly that acquiring the foreign citizenship would bring you an advantage or avoid or remove significant disadvantages.
• Personal impact: general disadvantages that every foreigner faces compared with nationals were not enough. You had to be particularly affected in your own concrete situation.
• Lasting ties to Germany: despite living abroad permanently, your ties to Germany had to remain close enough to justify keeping German citizenship.
• Dual citizenship in the other country: the other state had to allow dual citizenship.

Anyone who couldn't document these points convincingly faced a bitter choice: give up the second passport or lose the first. For investors who wanted a second passport as a safeguard, the bar was especially high, because a safeguard is not a disadvantage you can already prove today.

The new 2024 law: multiple citizenship without asking

With the Act to Modernize Nationality Law (Gesetz zur Modernisierung des Staatsangehörigkeitsrechts), the legislature struck this rule. The act was signed on 22 March 2024, promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette 2024 I No. 104 and, for the most part, entered into force on 27 June 2024. Since then the former section 25 StAG appears in the statute only as "repealed".

The Federal Office of Administration sums up the consequence in one sentence: acquiring another citizenship by application no longer leads to the loss of German citizenship. This applies to every citizenship worldwide, with no list of approved countries and no review of your ties. The Federal Foreign Office puts it just as plainly: the retention permit previously required is abolished.

For you this means: you choose your second country by your own goals, not by whether a German authority agrees. Whether you naturalize after years in the country or acquire citizenship by descent or by investment, your German citizenship simply carries on. The full framework for Germans with two or more passports is set out in the overview of dual citizenship in Germany.

The political debate about reversing the reform changes nothing either. The law in force is the 2024 act, and a second passport you acquire under the law in force is lawfully acquired. What most Germans don't know about their own citizenship is collected in 7 little-known facts about German citizenship (in German).

Applying for a retention permit: is it still possible?

No, and you don't need to. Anyone looking for a retention application today finds only a note from the Federal Office of Administration: "repealed as of 27 June 2024". A permit can no longer be issued because it no longer has any legal basis.

What happened to pending applications

Many people still had an application running in spring 2024, often for months. The Federal Office of Administration closed every case that had not been completed, free of charge and without formalities. You don't need to do anything, and the authority explicitly asks people not to enquire about the status of their file.

One date is decisive: the day your foreign citizenship took effect. Under the old law the loss occurred upon acquisition, and a loss by operation of law is governed by the law in force at that moment. If you were naturalized on 27 June 2024 or later, you remained German, even if you had applied abroad years earlier.

Your application today: only in the other country

On the way to your second passport you now deal with just one authority. You apply in the country whose citizenship you want and meet its requirements there. Germany plays no part at any step. What that looks like in practice for citizenship by investment, from program to passport, is shown in the process.

What an old retention certificate is still worth

If you received your retention certificate on or before 26 June 2024 and acquired the other citizenship only afterwards, you remained German. The Federal Office of Administration makes it clear that these certificates are valid under the old law. Since 27 June 2024 they no longer have any legal effect of their own, because there is nothing left to prevent.

Never throw them away all the same. The Federal Office of Administration strongly recommends keeping the certificate safe and permanently, together with the certificate of your other citizenship. The reason is practical: if you were naturalized before 2024, a passport office, a civil registry or a German mission abroad may one day ask whether you are still German at all. That is when exactly this certificate proves you never lost German citizenship. It matters for your children too, whose German citizenship depends on yours. What applies to them is covered in children with two passports.

So keep these certificates the way you keep your birth certificate: the original in a safe place, a copy in a second one.

Retention permit for the USA: what applies today

For many Germans in the United States, the retention permit was for decades the eye of the needle before the naturalization oath. They have lived there for years, they work there, they have started families, and they wanted the right to vote without giving up where they come from.

Today exactly the same rule applies to the US as to every other country: you become American and stay German, with no application in Cologne, no waiting and no weighing of interests. If your search still turns up old instructions on "applying to retain German citizenship", you're reading legal history.

What the American passport gives you and what your path there looks like is described in Amerikaner werden, Deutscher bleiben (in German). What two passports from Germany and the US mean in everyday life, for taxes, travel and children, is covered in German-American dual citizenship.

Lost German citizenship before 2024: your way back

The reform does not apply retroactively. Anyone who acquired a foreign citizenship by application before 27 June 2024 without a retention permit lost their German citizenship under the law then in force. The Federal Office of Administration states that such a loss remains legally effective. It is not final, however. There are two ways back.

Route 1: renaturalization under section 13 StAG

Former Germans living abroad have a naturalization route of their own. Under section 13 StAG, a former German and their minor children habitually resident abroad can be naturalized on application. The conditions set out in the law:

1. Your identity and citizenship are established.
2. You have legal capacity or are represented by a legal representative.
3. You have not been convicted of an unlawful act, and no measure has been ordered against you on the grounds that you lacked criminal responsibility.

The Federal Foreign Office confirms that this route is open precisely to those who naturalized abroad without a permit before 27 June 2024. And the best part: according to the Federal Office of Administration, naturalization under section 13 StAG has no longer required you to give up your existing citizenship since the reform. You get your German passport back and keep the other one.

You have no legal entitlement to it, however. The Federal Office of Administration expressly points out that it decides at its discretion. It is responsible for everyone living abroad, and you can file the application online through the federal service portal (Bundesportal). That is why a complete, well-documented application is more than a formality.

Route 2: checking whether you ever lost German citizenship

For some older cases there is a second, stronger route. The Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) ruled on 4 March 2026 (BVerwG 1 C 4.25): where the statutory loss under the former section 25 StAG also takes away EU citizenship, it is subject to an individual proportionality review that takes account of the fundamental rights in the EU Charter. The Court of Justice of the European Union had set the framework for this on 25 April 2024.

This mainly affects Germans who hold no other EU citizenship, such as Americans, Canadians or Turks who used to be German. In these cases, section 30(1), sentence 4 StAG allows a finding that someone is no longer German only if the loss of EU citizenship is also proportionate. According to the judgment, the statutory exception in sentence 5, covering everyone who did not apply at the time to avert the loss or whose application was refused, does not apply if you had no effective access to such a review or none took place.

If the review goes in your favor, then in the court's words you must be allowed not merely to regain but to retain German citizenship. The details are in the news item on the ruling on the loss of German citizenship.

Getting certainty: the certificate of citizenship

If you're unsure whether you're still German, there is a procedure for exactly that. Under section 30 StAG the authority determines on application whether you hold German citizenship, provided you credibly show a legitimate interest. This determination is binding in every matter where your citizenship is legally relevant. If the result is positive, you receive a certificate of citizenship (Staatsangehörigkeitsausweis). For Germans abroad, the Federal Office of Administration is responsible here too.

What still ends German citizenship today

A second passport no longer costs you German citizenship. What can still end it today is set out exhaustively in section 17(1) StAG, in three points:

• Renunciation under section 26 StAG, which you can declare voluntarily as a multiple citizen. The former release from citizenship no longer exists.
• Joining the armed forces or a comparable armed group of a foreign state, under the conditions of section 28 StAG.
• Withdrawal of an unlawful administrative act under section 35 StAG, such as a naturalization obtained by deception.

Acquiring another citizenship is not on this list. Whether renunciation ever makes sense for you and what it triggers is covered in giving up German citizenship.

A second passport without a permit: what you make of it now

The end of the retention permit is more than an administrative simplification. It changes what Germans can plan for. You used to have to prove a disadvantage to get a second passport. Today it is enough to want security, freedom of choice and a second right that nobody can take from you by official decision.

Two routes are open to you, and you are strongest when you take both:

• Naturalization abroad is the free route and in the end often the stronger one. But it demands years of genuine residence in the new country.
• Citizenship by investment buys you exactly that time. It gives you a second right within months while you walk the longer road. How the two combine is shown in CBI and naturalization.

What happens to your German passport on the investment route is answered by the end of the retention permit: it stays. The details, including which program countries expressly allow multiple citizenship, are in CBI passport and German passport. Sierra Leone, for example, accepts multiple citizenship without restriction. Which programs fit your budget and your family is shown in the comparison of all programs.

Anyone who once wrote to Cologne and waited months for an answer knows what this freedom is worth. You no longer have to ask anyone. You only have to decide.

Frequently asked questions