People attend a Nationalization Ceremony where 100 people received their citizenship in the USA. Meanwhile, elsewhere, hundreds are renouncing their citizenship. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images) citizenship.
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There is an unusual contradiction in American citizenship policy. For immigrants who have spent years working toward U.S. citizenship, the price of becoming an American could soon rise sharply to $1280. At the same time, the United States has cut the government fee charged to Americans who want to give up citizenship from $ 2350 to $450. In other words, for one group, American citizenship remains a prize but for another, it has become a burden they are prepared to pay to leave behind.
The Rising Price Of Becoming An American
The proposal to raise fees goes further. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would eliminate the current $380 reduced fee for qualifying lower-income applicants and end most fee waivers for Form N-400. Statutory exemptions for qualifying current and former members of the armed forces would remain. DHS says applicants should bear the full cost of processing naturalization cases rather than having those costs subsidized by other immigration fees. As of September 2026, the changes have not yet taken effect. But they will soon enough.
Even the present $710 fee for citizenship can be hard for some applicants, and costs do not stop at the filing fee. People may have to pay for documents, certified translations, travel to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services appointments, time off work, optional classes, or a lawyer. Applicants need not buy study materials—but some choose paid tutoring. Also, a first adult passport currently costs $130 plus a $35 acceptance fee. Bear in mind that medical exams and the much larger costs of getting a green card for permanent residence belong to an earlier stage of the immigration process, not to the N-400 citizenship stage itself. But taken as a whole the full journey from immigration arrival to citizenship can cost far more than just the final step. So it’s not free, nor is it cheap.
Why Citizenship Is Still Worth Pursuing
Naturalization buys more than a U.S. citizenship certificate. On the other hand, just a green card provides just permanent residence. Put another way, citizenship is permanent membership whereas a green card is only residence. The principal advantages of citizenship include the right to vote in federal elections; eligibility for jobs that require citizenship; a U.S. passport; broader opportunities to sponsor family members; and the security of citizenship regarding the right of return to the country. Just a green card and permanent resident status, on the other hand, still entails the risks of uncertain entry and possible removability.
There can also be an economic dividend. Migration Policy Institute data show median earnings of $67,000 for naturalized immigrant men and $54,000 for women, compared with $46,000 and $38,000 among noncitizen immigrant men and women. Median household income was $84,000 for naturalized-citizen households and $64,000 for noncitizen households. Some of that gap reflects education, occupation, and other differences, not citizenship alone. But a separate, older 2015 Urban Institute study estimated that naturalization was associated with almost a 9% earnings increase among immigrants eligible to naturalize. While that finding should not be treated as a 2026 wage forecast, it does support the narrower claim that naturalization has been linked to higher earnings. So even at $1,280, the naturalization fee can viewed by some as small against decades of political, economic, and personal benefits. For these reasons, demand has remained large: over 800,000 people became U.S. citizens in fiscal year 2024, 12% above the 2010–2019 annual average for example.
The Price Of Leaving Has Fallen
While the DHS proposes to raise the price of becoming a citizen, the State Department has cut the price of giving citizenship up. From 2014 until this year, processing a Certificate of Loss of Nationality cost $2,350. Effective in April 2026, that fee fell to $450—an over 80% reduction. There is no single real-time federal count of renunciations. What the numbers do show most reliably, however, is that expatriation activity has increased in recent years. Greenback Expat Tax Services, for example, has counted 5,790 names in the four most recent Treasury expatriation notices, although those numbers include certain long-term green-card holders ending U.S. tax residency as well as former citizens and publication can lag the underlying act.
Why Some People Leave
For immigrants in the United States, citizenship is a membership in the society. But for some Americans living permanently abroad, the same status can feel like a compliance burden. That’s because the United States generally taxes taxpayers based on citizenship, not residence alone. Americans overseas may still face U.S. income-tax filing and financial-reporting rules after decades abroad and after paying tax where they live.
Tax is not the only stated reason. Greenback’s surveys of its own respondents found that almost 50% of participating U.S. expats in 2025 said they planned to renounce U.S. citizenship or were seriously considering it, up from 30% in 2024 and 20% in 2023. In 2024, tax compliance was the most frequently cited factor, followed by ties to another country and dissatisfaction with the direction of government. By 2025, dissatisfaction with government was the leading stated factor, and over 80% described U.S. tax filing as stressful. While Greenback acknowledges these numbers are not a representative sample, they do help to explain the fewer practical advantages of U.S. citizenship, and the continuing costs from filings, reporting, and foreign-account rules.
Renunciation Is Not The Mirror Image
It’s important to note that giving up citizenship is not simply the reverse of applying for it. State Department guidance requires an interview with a U.S. diplomatic or consular officer in person, and a personal oath. Loss of nationality is generally intended to be permanent. A former American also loses the automatic right to live in or enter the United States and must thereafter seek admission like other foreign nationals.
Expatriating citizens generally must file the application and certify five years of federal tax compliance. Certain higher-income or higher-net-worth individuals can become “covered expatriates” subject to special rules, including an exit tax. For 2026, one threshold for the tax is average annual net income-tax liability above $211,000; another is net worth of $2 million or more. Failure to certify five years of compliance can independently trigger covered-expatriate status. So the $450 State Department fee can be the simplest part of leaving.
The Paradox
America can raise the price of admission and still naturalize hundreds of thousands of people. But it almost seems like America wants to exclude more citizens since it is charging way less to renounce than to naturalize. Whatever the case may be, the value is not in the passport alone. It is in what citizenship means in the life of the person who holds it. In this case it turns out that one person’s burden can be another person’s treasure.
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