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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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For a growing number of Americans living outside the country, U.S. citizenship has become a burden—and they are getting rid of it.
Nearly 5,000 people called it quits with the country in 2024, according to data from Boundless, which provides immigration services to individuals and families. That was up from 2,426 in 2021, and from the roughly 200-400 reported each year before 2009.
Their decision to renounce citizenship would likely sound incredible to the millions of undocumented migrants in the U.S. fearing deportation by the Trump administration, for whom naturalization is the ultimate dream of security, the golden ticket that would allow them to stay in the country fear-free.
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But there are now so many Americans who want to relinquish citizenship that wait times are getting longer at embassies and consulates around the world, according to lawyer Alexander Marino, who heads Moody’s, the largest renunciation law practice in the world.
“Obviously Canada has some of the longest wait times in the world, but the London Embassy is really rough right now too. Edinburgh’s wait time is long, Sydney’s long. Singapore’s long,” Marino told Newsweek. “To be honest, the list of places where the wait time is long is longer than the list of places where it is short, and that’s the problem.”
Newsweek spoke with three former Americans who have renounced citizenship to understand what is fueling the recent increase and what is driving people to face a lengthy, complex process and months-long lines to get rid of something the Trump administration calls “a gift that should be cherished.”
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How Do You Renounce U.S. Citizenship?
Americans living abroad can renounce U.S. citizenship before a diplomatic or consular office of the U.S. in a foreign state.
They have to complete the required forms, which are reviewed by the State Department, attend two interviews with a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer abroad (one of which is in person), and take the oath of renunciation in person. Any request must be reviewed, approved and acknowledged by the State Department.
The request might make you stateless, the department warns, and may result in an applicant being barred from the country if the reason for renouncing is found to be to avoid U.S. taxes. As it turns out, this is one of the main reasons why Americans renounce their citizenship.
The State Department does not publish statistics on the number of Americans who choose to renounce their citizenship each year and referred Newsweek to a quarterly report on expatriations published by the Treasury Department in April featuring hundreds of names.
Formally renouncing U.S. citizenship currently has a fee of $450, which was lowered this year from $2,350, the price introduced in 2015. Before 2010, renouncing U.S. citizenship was free.
Why Are Americans Giving Up Citizenship?
Scott (not his real name) is 62 and was born in the Mountain West but now lives in Canada. He served the U.S. for 12 and a half years in the military, but despite everything he gave to the nation and what the country means to him, he renounced U.S. citizenship earlier this year.
There is one reason why he took this drastic step: taxes. The U.S. is one of only two countries in the world (Eritrea is the other) that practice citizenship-based taxation, meaning they require citizens to file tax returns on their income regardless of where they live.
“I have to file a U.S. tax return every year. That can be very expensive. Upwards to $3,000-5,000, depending on how complicated your tax situation is,” Scott told Newsweek.
But having to pay taxes in the U.S. every year was a nuisance rather than a dealbreaker for Scott. What made the difference was a property owned by his wife in Canada, and the issue of who should inherit it in case anything would happen to her.
“As an American, the inheritance tax would be substantial, and we would possibly have to sell it to pay the taxes,” Scott said. “The best option was for me to renounce my citizenship. We also have two boys that are in the same situation, as they are considered U.S. citizens from birth. So we are working on them to renounce as well. Until they do, they won’t be able to inherit any land if my wife and/or I pass on.”
The process of renouncing citizenship was pretty straightforward for Scott, but expensive, as he worked with lawyers to make sure he got the process right.
“For me alone, it is going to cost around $35,000 Canadian. For my boys about $12,000 Canadian to $15,000 Canadian each.”
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Scott and his family had to ditch their nearest embassy in Canada, where the wait time was over a year long, for another in Europe. They made a vacation out of it, and from start to finish the process was completed in three months.
Without the current tax system imposed on U.S. expats, Scott would likely not have chosen to renounce his citizenship.
“I am a very patriotic former U.S. citizen. I loved my birth country, but it just isn’t for me anymore,” Scott said. “My life is in Canada, I don’t plan on ever moving back to the U.S.”
For Marino, who has handled thousands of cases over the past decade plus, between 98 percent and 99 percent of people renouncing citizenship do so for tax reasons, but there are geopolitical issues on top of that.
“Recently there has been some tension, whether you love or hate [President] Donald Trump, he is leading more people on the left to give up the U.S. citizenship,” he said. “I wouldn’t say it’s the sole reason in most cases, but a lot of times it’s just the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
“I can deal with paying the accountants thousands a year, people say. I can deal with not investing in the right assets and leaving money on the table. I can live with the double tax I pay on the sale of my home or not having a trust or a corporation for my business and the mess my death would leave my kids in—but this is just the last straw.”
Alice (not her real name), 30, was born in the U.S. but has lived most of her life in Europe. She renounced her U.S. citizenship this year after years of time-consuming and expensive tax filings—mainly because of the restrictions she faced as a U.S. citizen approaching the local banking system.
Only a couple of banks in the country where she lives take on U.S. clients, “which really limits things,” she told Newsweek. “In the perspective of wanting to buy a house and take out a loan, it really diminishes competition and my buying power. That was a big one for me.”
What was starting to really nag at Alice was having to report on anything she did with her money to “a country that I have absolutely nothing to do with,” she said.
“I don’t benefit from any of their systems. I could vote, but I don’t because I don’t have a valid passport and it’s also extremely expensive and time-consuming to get a new one. It also had implications on me getting my new job. I had to jump through many more hoops and get my birth certificate or a clear criminal record from the FBI. All of this stuff is extremely time-consuming and clunky, for lack of a better word, and I was honestly just kind of sick of it.”
She had been thinking about renouncing her citizenship for years but was still considering whether she ever wanted to move back.
“Given the state of the country now and the political situation and my fundamental dislike of Trump and his policies and the direction in which that country is going, I decided to pull the trigger and finally give it up,” she said.
She has just one regret—that the fee for renouncing was drastically cut right after she paid $2,350 to do something that now costs $450.
“I knew that it was meant to be rolled back, but since it had been at that price for so long, I sort of just bit the bullet, saved up for it and did it. But of course it was a bit of a stab to see the price had been rolled back I think exactly like a week after I paid the full amount.”
Alice had been working with lawyers and professionals leading to the renunciation and wishes there had been some notice or formal announcement well ahead of the fee change.
“But at the end of the day, I’m happy that I got rid of it,” she said. “Of course, I am extremely privileged that the $2,350 doesn’t make a big difference for me. The main problem with that huge fee is that it was really problematic for a lot of people who might have been kind of like me, accidental Americans with no ties to the U.S. I am glad that it was rolled back, as it should have been.”
Her sister, who had an appointment to renounce her citizenship two weeks after her, was able to postpone it to take advantage of the new, lower fee.
“The embassy was really accommodating, answered immediately, pushed back her appointment,” she said. “That’s really great for her, but of course, frustrating for me.”
Role of FACTA in Rising Renunciation Rates
John (not his real name) renounced U.S. citizenship three years ago. Born in the U.S. from Canadian parents, he moved north as a child and grew up in Canada.
He believes that the recent rise in renunciations is not a result of politics or taxes but mainly because of FACTA “and the difficulties people have with banking and investing if they are identifiably US citizens due to birthplace.”
The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FACTA, which was passed in 2010, is a federal law requiring foreign financial institutions and certain other non-financial foreign entities to report on the foreign assets held by their U.S. account holders.
Marino confirmed that the number of Americans renouncing citizenship “has gradually gone up since the inception of FACTA.”
“More than 190-plus countries agreed to this program, which went into effect in 2014," he said. "Whether it’s traveling, whether it’s banking, whether it's renewals of passports, there’s a real push as the technology increases and the world gets smaller, so to speak, to find U.S. citizens who have not been filing their tax returns.
“The U.S. government has had citizen-based taxation for 200-plus years. What has changed is the technology today—online banking, information sharing, tech companies, AI, FATCA; they now allow expats to be caught so easily and so simply. There's nowhere to hide anymore.
“No matter where you go, every euro, pound, peso you ever make is subject to U.S. tax, in life and in death. And when you’re living in a low-tax jurisdiction like the United Arab Emirates, it’s not fun to be taxed by the U.S. And when you’re living in a high-tax jurisdiction, like the U.K,, having two hands in your cookie jar is also never fun.”
Initially, John had no plans to renounce because “it simply wasn’t necessary,” he told Newsweek. Having been out of the U.S. most of his life, he never filed U.S. tax returns, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) never asked him about it, he said.
“Canadian banks don’t ask for ID with place of birth, so I could easily lie about my U.S. citizenship and avoid FATCA. I knew that the IRS had no ability to find or punish Canadians so there was no risk of filing. Why waste $2,350 for something you didn’t need to do,” he said, referring to the cost of renouncing citizenship before the fee was changed earlier this year.
“What changed my mind was potential complications with estate planning. My parents informed the lawyer and their investment manager of my U.S. citizenship; as a consequence, were I to serve as power of attorney, executor or trustee, all of their accounts would become reportable under FATCA. Nobody wanted that.
“I made an appointment, waited 14 months, then renounced. My CLN arrived a month later. No taxes filed before or after, never heard a peep from the IRS, I expect I never will.”
It was an easy decision for him to make.
“I was long past the point of ever wanting to move to or work in the U.S., have no family or financial connections to the country, and since Trump’s return I have, like most Canadians, refused to even consider crossing the border for pleasure,” he said.
Getting ‘Harder and Harder’ Every Year
For Marino, the lower fee to renounce U.S. citizenship is something of a red herring. It has not made renouncing easier, he said.
“Year over year, it gets harder and harder to not only deal with the double taxation rules, but also to renounce citizenship,” he said. “The rules are built to make it harder and harder, the longer one waits. A lot of U.S. expats just feel boxed in. There are multiple potholes and landmines that we need to avoid. When going through a renunciation, you need to be mindful of tax rules, IRS rules, Social Security, USCIS, State Department, Foreign Affairs.
“We want to renounce and avoid a very nasty exit tax, because if you don’t renounce the right way, they’ll hit you with an exit fee. We have to make sure that when you pass away after a proper renunciation, there’s no inheritance tax and that you will be treated like any other citizen of your fallback passport. You can still collect Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and travel back with no issues. Keep the credit card there, keep the 401k, the IRA, the Roth, the 403b, the 529.”
Waiting times are also discouraging Americans from renouncing.
“Fourteen-month wait time in London for the privilege of renouncing, paying a government fee, legal fees to hand in one of the most coveted citizenships in the world," Marino said. "Here in Toronto, it’s 14-16 months. We have six locations in Canada to renounce. The shortest wait time right now is probably 10-12 months.”
No matter how long it takes or how much it costs, the growing numbers of Americans renouncing citizenship shows that those who want to leave are leaving. And it seems like the Trump administration is happy to bid farewell to them.
“The Trump administration is committed to strengthening the integrity of American citizenship. U.S. citizenship is a gift that should be cherished,” the State Department said in a statement shared with Newsweek.
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