A change in regulations from the US State Department has dropped the price for giving up American citizenship, following a lobbying effort from campaign group Accidental Americans, people who were born in the United States but have no connection to it.
The price of applying to renounce citizenship will decrease from from $2,350 (€2,022) to $450 (€381) from April 13, 2026, the state department said.
The move comes as more Americans are giving up their citizenship and moving abroad. The Netherlands saw it’s biggest jump in immigration from Americans in a decade last year.
The Association of Accidental Americans has been pushing for years to reduce the cost of getting rid of their citizenship. Many were born while their parents were temporarily visiting the US and have no other connection to the country.
“This fee reduction is a concrete first victory – but our fight to have the right to renounce recognized as a fundamental constitutional right continues,” Fabien Lehagre, the group’s founder said in a statement.
US citizens are required to file tax returns regardless of where their live and are required to supply the government with information about any assets they hold abroad, including bank accounts, houses and more.
The fiscal regulations have led Dutch banks to threaten to close the accounts of people with American nationality, unless they can furnish them with a US tax number.
But there are thousands of Dutch nationals in the Netherlands with American nationality who do not have a tax number because they have never lived in the country and may not even have realised they are also American.
Emily Montague is among those who didn’t know she had American citizenship until she moved to the Netherlands in 2019.
“My bank told me I needed to provide them with a US citizenship number, but I don’t have one,” she told Dutch News.
Montague was born in the US when her French mother joined her Nigerian father on a research trip. She has never returned to the US and has no family there. She has been trying to get rid of her citizenship since she discovered she had it.
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