Our goals and services

Our goal is to provide academics, governments, international organisations and NGOs with information for research and evidence-based evaluation of public policies.

We do not offer information or counselling to individuals interested in acquiring the citizenship of a particular country and we do not encourage experts in our network to answer such requests.

Quicklinks
EUDO homepage
Testimonials

The EUDO CITZENSHIP Web site should be the first place policymakers, researchers, and journalists with questions about citizenship and nationality laws visit.

Demetrios G. Papademetriou, President, Migration Policy Institute

Read more

 

"This website is an indispensable source of a wealth of information and ideas for both people working on practical issues of citizenship and nationality and for those engaged in research in the area. Since the twin purposes which it serves are here to stay for the foreseeable future, its continuation is equally vital"
Elizabeth Meehan, Queen's University Belfast

Read more

 

Comparing Citizenship Laws: Acquisition of Citizenship

This page provides information on how citizenship is acquired in all countries covered by EUDO CITIZENSHIP.

In order to make citizenship laws comparable across countries, which is one of the core aims of EUDO CITIZENSHIP, we use a comprehensive typology that covers the wide variety of ways in which people can acquire and lose citizenship of a country. Our typology distinguishes between 27 ‘modes of acquisition’, or ways in which citizenship can be acquired.

In the modes of acquisition database users can generate overviews by country, containing all active regulations for individual countries, or generate comparative overviews across countries for selected modes. The overviews are based on detailed comparative questionnaires answered by citizenship experts in all of the countries covered by EUDO CITIZENSHIP. The overviews by country and by mode can be exported in .xls format.

The database on modes of acquisition was compiled by Maarten P. Vink, Sara Wallace Goodman and Gerard-René de Groot, based on information from comparative questionnaires submitted by the legal experts of the countries covered by EUDO CITIZENSHIP.

 

Click here to visit the EUDO CITIZENSHIP modes of acquisition database

 

Citizenship laws often use different terms for similar rules. Comparing legal provisions on acquisition and loss of citizenship requires therefore a standardisation of terms and definitions. See the EUDO Citizenship glossary for definitions of all terms used in the Modes of acquisition database and the comparative reports.

For more information on the methodology of comparing acquisition and loss of citizenship read Harald Waldrauch’s 2006 report.