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. Combined with mandatory renunciation of your existing citizenship — reaffirmed when voters rejected dual citizenship by 61.5% in August 2020 — this is effectively a 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 cost is three decades of your life, or a referendum on your personal likeability.
- Timeline
- 120–360 months — 10 years plus a municipal vote, or 30 years by the simplified route
- Physical presence
- Continuous genuine residence throughout
- Family
- spouse via the marriage routeminor children included with a naturalising parent
- Permanent residency
- n/a — this is the citizenship stage
- Citizenship
- n/a
- 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' residencerenunciation of all prior citizenshipsGerman language and civic knowledgeintegration and clean recordLandtag approval and conferral by the Reigning Prince
- You must renounce your existing citizenship to naturalise. The August 2020 referendum to relax this was rejected 61.5% to 38.5%.
- The municipal assembly vote is a genuine popularity contest with no appeal, and its use has collapsed to a few percent of naturalisations.
- The simplified route takes 30 years.
- Asymmetry worth knowing: an existing Liechtenstein citizen who naturalises elsewhere MAY keep Liechtenstein citizenship if the other state permits dual nationality. The restriction binds incomers, not natives.
- There is no citizenship-by-investment programme and no prospect of one.