Citizenship by Descent – CBD – has become a popular method for many, specifically Americans, to acquire a second passport and a Plan B citizenship – at relatively low cost – while learning about their bloodline.

However, CBD can be as complicated as it is straightforward – and it is not for everyone.

Citizenship by descent is not a form of naturalization, it is a legal recognition that you were born a citizen of that country – and by-default, born a dual citizen.

However, simply having an ancestor born in a specific country does not guarantee that his or her citizenship passed down the generations.

Each country decides how a person may acquire citizenship by descent – if at all.

CBD laws are usually described by their generational reach – allowing a person to reach back either 1, 2, or 3+ generations. For example:

• Ireland’s CBD law is 3 generations, meaning it’s possible to acquire Irish citizenship from: your parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent.
• Germany’s CBD law only recognizes 1 generation, meaning you could only acquire German citizenship from a parent.
• Italy’s CBD law is 3+ generations, meaning citizenship could pass as far back as the creation of the Italian Republic.

In addition to the generational restrictions, countries can implement other requirements to determine whether citizenship was preserved and if so, whether it passed on.

The Irish CBD law mandates that each birth in the line of citizenship succession must have been registered in Ireland’s Foreign Births Register.

Some CBD laws are relatively uncomplicated [such as in Italy] while in other cases, CBD recognition is essentially identical to naturalization [such as in Portugal].

Italy’s CBD recognition process is the most effective to use to gain a second passport and citizenship, providing of course, you qualify for Italian CBD.

However, Italy is not the only country that offers citizenship by descent. There are nearly three dozen countries with established CBD processes and the most common are European due to the fact that nearly all non-European countries implement 1 generation CBD.

CBD programs are incredibly diverse and some are very seldom ever utilized. Here are the most common and effective ones.

Citizenship by Descent Countries