Most countries provide citizenship if one or both of your parents were citizens of the country at the time of your birth.
Some countries provide for citizenship if your ancestry – back typically to grandparents – were citizens of the country.
- Bulgaria (any number of generations back)
- Hungary (up to great grandparents and in some case any number)
- Ireland
- Italy (back to 1848 in some cases)
- Latvia (parents or if your have ancestors who fled during occupation years)
- Lithuania (ancestral citizens during 1918-1940, or if left before 1990)
- Luxembourg (through grandparents, or further back if on paternal line)
- Poland (ancestry from 1919 onward)
- Slovakia (Czech ancestry)
- Denmark (Danish parents or all of your grandparents were Danish)
- Finland (parent or grandparent)
- Austria (parent or descendant of Nazi persecution)
- Germany (parent or descendant of Nazi persecution)
- Greece (parent or grandparent but if male, 19-45, you must serve in military)
- Israel (anyone who is Jewish)
- Malta (grandparents)
- Portugal (grandparents)
- Romania (grandparents)
- Spain (up to grandparents, plus citizens of certain Spanish heritage countries in Latin America and elsewhere can receive citizenship in 2 years)
- Canada (if you have a Canadian parent, even if you were born outside of Canada, and even if, due to past Canadian laws, your parent had to give up Canadian citizenship in the past)
About 50 countries, world-wide, offer citizenship by descent programs: Large list of countries with citizenship-by-descent – Coldstreams Travel and Global Thinking
Additionally, several countries in Africa provide citizenship options to Black Americans who move to the country in Africa.
Many Americans qualify for citizenship in other countries by virtue of their ancestry. This is an immense immigration privilege that is not available to many of us.
US media is all in – with weekly stories letting you know that America is awful and if you are special and privileged, than you can move to another country where life is wonderful: Want to leave the US? Here’s how to move to Canada, Mexico and Europe as an American.
(If you read this blog you know that most of those stories are largely bull shit and most Americans, lacking immigration privileges – including being of the right age – will not and cannot move to other countries as easily as these silly media tropes suggest.)