Cost of Giving Up Nationality Around the World

A lot of news has been made recently about the United States' decision to not only massively increase the price for its renunciation (by a whopping 422%), but to also charge the same amount of money for either renouncing or relinquishing American nationality — a process that used to be free.

{This graph, depending on your browsing device, may be interactive and may take some time to completely load (the United States should be last). Hover your pointer and select certain countries for more info. Green circles are the cheapest countries. Yellow circles are moderately expensive countries. Red circles are the most expensive countries. Initial $ conversion based on average 2015 dollar rates. Further interactive USD⇒JPY conversion is done in real time}

It should be noted that the United States is not the only country that charges money for giving up its citizenship. Although changing one's citizenship is considered to be an official Human Right (and thus available to all without needing to pay for it), countries usually charge for it obstinately by saying that they are not charging a fee as a way to discourage it or penalize traitors, but rather to recoup the cost of administration and paperwork associated with the process. Some of the things needed to do, in additional to updating records, is:

• Check to make sure the person really isn't becoming stateless (forbidden by most United Nations countries — the United States is an exception — to comply with conventions attempting to prevent statelessness)
• Check to make sure that the person isn't doing this as some sort of fraud or scheme to avoid or escape the law. This is similar to the checks done when one legally changes their name, though, so the process shouldn't be much more expensive than a legal name change.
• Update special databases to prevent future abuse of the nationality change. For example, adding one's name to a special blacklist to make sure that they can't use their birth certificate or other document to claim they are a citizen and attempt to have a passport or other identification re-issued to a person who lost their nationality.

One would think that the process would get cheaper for American embassies & consulates and the state department to do as they do it more and more often (the number of U.S. nationals giving up their nationality has skyrocketed since the implementation of FBAR and FATCA policies to enforce overseas tax compliance) — due to streamlining out the inefficiencies. However, the number of applications is still low enough that simplification and consolidation of bureaucracy still hasn't happened. There are some, however, that suspect the U.S. State Department might actually not just be breaking even from its relinquishment/renouncement fee, but actually making a profit. There does not seem to be a correlation between the fee for renouncing and the prevalence of citizens from certain countries who choose to give up their nationality.

As someone who has gone through the process of relinquishment (back when it was still free of charge), I didn't see of lot of complexity or special handling with respect to my case. In fact, I had such a difficult time getting the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo to provide me with this "service" that I considered alternative venues. I wrote about my personal experience here:

1. Appointment: Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 1 of 4)
2. Phone Tag: Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 2 of 4)
3. Taiwan? Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 3 of 4)
4. Success! Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 4 of 4)

There are some countries in the world where, despite the 15th Article of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they will not let you give up your citizenship. Whether or not you are required to give up your nationality or simply make a declaration of which country you are loyal to (via a form called the 国籍選択届 {kokuseki sentaku todoke} or "Choice of Nationality Declaration"), and whether you give up your previous nationalities after or before receiving your Japanese nationality, depends not on your personal circumstances but on your nationality. You don't get to choose which and when you want to do it; your case worker will tell you what procedure and the order in order to meet the requirements for naturalization. If you are told to give up your previous nationality after obtaining Japanese nationality, they can check your family unit register (戸籍 {koseki}) to make sure you've actually done it properly (and there are cases of them checking for compliance). Regardless, doing something about your previous nationality is a required step for obtaining and keeping Japanese nationality.

Looking at the approximately two score (37) country sample of data for which the fees for giving up nationality were available on their embassy sites (plotted on the map at the top of this post) and normalizing to the last year's average U.S. dollar exchange rate for non-greenback based fees, we see:

• a few countries that are free (zero digits):
• Ireland
• South Africa
• Sweden
• one where it's almost free (one significant digit):
• Malaysia
• about a dozen countries where the fee could be considered to be trivial (two significant digits)
• about a dozen countries where the fee could be considered to be considerable (three significant digits)

• 

  "Money is number and numbers never end.
  If it takes numbers to be happy,
  your search for happiness will never end."

  two countries where the fee is expensive (four digits):
• The United States of America
• Jamaica

Besides the United States, the only other country in the world that charges over a thousand dollars to give up nationality is Jamaica. It is unclear as to why Jamaica is much more expensive compared to the rest of the world (except the United States).

Still, Jamaica has nothing on America. America's fee ($2350) is more than twice the fee that Jamaica charges (USD$1,000 or $80,000 Jamaican Dollars with a $JMD1,000 certificate fee). After Jamaica, the third most expensive country to renounce nationality is Egypt ($800).

Japan has always been both free of charge (¥0) for submitting the forms and applying for naturalization or renouncing Japanese nationality, although fees to obtain paperwork to complete the application have to be borne by the applicant.