Liechtenstein · Citizenship by naturalisation
Liechtenstein Naturalisation (ordinary municipal vote route and simplified 30-year route)
Open but exceptionally difficult, and uniquely subject to a popular vote of the commune you live in. Naturalisation by municipal vote has collapsed to roughly 2–8% of all naturalisations.
Liechtenstein is the only European state that puts your naturalisation to a vote of your neighbours in a municipal assembly. It also requires you to renounce your existing citizenship, a rule voters reaffirmed in August 2020 by rejecting dual citizenship, 61.5% to 38.5%. Together, these make naturalisation an effectively closed door for internationally mobile families.
Qualifying routes
10 years' residence, then your commune votes on whether to admit you, then the Landtag approves and the Reigning Prince confers.
30 years' residence, with years lived before age 20 counting double.
10 years, with years after marriage counting double.
The facts
- Total landed cost
- Nominal fees. The real cost is three decades of your life, or a referendum on your personal likeability.
- Route type
- By residence
- Timeline
- 10–30 years (10 years plus a municipal vote, or 30 years by the simplified route)
- Physical presence
- Continuous genuine residence throughout
- Family
- A spouse can qualify through the marriage routeMinor children are included when a parent naturalises
- Permanent residency
- Not applicable. This is the citizenship stage.
- Citizenship
- Not applicable
- Language test
- German, plus knowledge of Liechtenstein civics.
- Dual citizenship
- Not permitted. You would have to renounce.
- Requirements
- 10 years' residence plus a favourable municipal assembly vote, or 30 years' residence.Renunciation of all prior citizenships.German language and civic knowledge.Integration and a clean record.Landtag approval and conferral by the Reigning Prince.
- You must renounce your existing citizenship to naturalise. A referendum in August 2020 to relax this rule was rejected, 61.5% to 38.5%.
- The municipal assembly vote is a genuine popularity contest, with no right of appeal. Its use has fallen to just a few percent of naturalisations.
- The simplified route still takes 30 years.
- There is an asymmetry worth knowing about. An existing Liechtenstein citizen who naturalises elsewhere may keep Liechtenstein citizenship, if the other state allows dual nationality. The restriction binds incomers, not natives.
- There is no citizenship-by-investment programme, and no prospect of one.