double nationality!

[Kimaca]

this post might not be as romantic as most cute posts in this subforum and if it's not the right subforum please feel free to move it to the right one but my fiancé and I have been engaged since last year in January and we're filling out the I-129F as we speak cause I will be moving to the USA and get married to him there

What I was wondering though is, afaik, I can have a double nationality after a few years: my belgian one and US citizenship after 5 years. (2 years temporary GC, and 3 years of the permanent one?)
But what my fiancé and I are not sure about, can an American citizen have a double nationality as well?
We might later on move to Belgium (I mean when we retire or whatever) because Belgian health care is cheaper but he's hesitant about one day giving up his US citizenship, if that's what it takes to acquire the Belgian one.

SOOO, long story short,
Can an American have a double nationality if he's married to a Belgian woman that has both Belgian and American citizenship? And what are the conditions?

Thanks so much in advance!

Kimx

[snow]

https://www.belgium.be/en/family/bec...n_by_marriage/
From what I understand for this to work you'd have to get married in Belgium if you want it to be by marriage.

https://www.expatica.com/be/visas-an...ip_100133.html
Going by this, it says you can apply to become a citizen after 5-10 years of continuously living in the country. Belgium does not make you lose your citizenship.

https://www.ascotadvisory.com/US_Dual_Citizenship.html
and judging by this
Loss of Citizenship and Nationality excerpt from the following: https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...-policies.html

A U.S. citizen by birth or naturalization INA 301 (8 U.S.C. 1401), INA 310 (8 U.S.C. 1421) or a U.S. non citizen national INA 308 (8 U.S.C. 1408), INA 101(29) (8 U.S.C. 1101(29)) will lose U.S. nationality (“expatriate”) her or himself by committing a statutory act of expatriation as defined in INA 349 (8 U.S.C. 1481), or predecessor statute, but only if the act is performed (1) voluntarily and (2) with the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship. The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken (Afroyim v. Rusk, 387 U.S. 253 (1967) and Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U.S. 252 (1980)): a person cannot lose U.S. nationality unless he or she voluntarily relinquishes that status.

Only makes you lose citizenship if you volunatirly relinquish it

SO: Your spouse can have dual citizenship, if he wants to AND meets all the requirements in Belgium.

[vicks5721]

when you marry your fiance in America after 3 years you can apply to become a US citizen if you would like to but he would not automatically become a belgian citizen, he would have to apply by living in belgium.

[differentcountries]

I wonder, if you live all your adult working life in the US, will you have the same health care rights when you get retired as Belgians who lived those 30-40 years in Belgum?

[Kimaca]

For the most part, yes, of course it's not completely the same but compared to what you would pay in the States it's a huge difference

[Hollandia]

I am a US citizen and pretty sure unless you can prove you have a grandparent at least in a another country, you cannot have dual citizenship. Me and my Dutch husband plan on both retaining our individual countries citizenship unless some miracle law change happens. We can get permits and cards to "reside" by if you want to get citizenship in another country, contact an attorney before you give up yours.

[Dezface]

A US citizen can have dual citizenship. The government doesn't "encourage" it, but they won't stop him.

[mllebamako]

A US citizen can have dual citizenship. The government doesn't "encourage" it, but they won't stop him.

Yep. It's almost like a "don't tell us and we'll ignore it kind of thing". I'm an American citizen and have dual citizenship.

[Hollandia]

What do you have to do to get it?

[Kimaca]

Thank you guys so much for your help and imput!

[snow]

What do you have to do to get it?

You simply follow the guidelines of the country you want to get it from, but you have to be careful because there is countries that make you lose your prior citizenship. Austria says I can't be a dual-citizen unless I pay them a lot of money and have very good reasons for it, so I might not bother.

[Malaga]

I know a few girls (Croatian) who married Italian citizens and wanted dual citizenship. Croatia allows for it but Italy doesn't. So once they were eligible for Italian citizenship they'd go to the Croatian embassy, renounce their citizenship and take up Italian, then once they got Italian they'd just apply for Croatian again. I'm not sure if this works still and if it works in every country.

[abc123]

Are you sure you're even able to have both? Just because both countries allow dual citizenship doesn't mean you're eligible. Most countries only allow this if it is through birth, not marriage.

[R&R]

Apparently when I marry my SO I can apply for dual-citizenship with Mexico but we would have to be married for 2 years first and live in Mexico. He has a family ranch in Mexico that he owns with his sister but they are never there. I don't know if putting my name on the deed would be enough. Honestly though, I have no great desire to become a Mexican citizen.

[Harlequin]

I looked into getting dual citizenship to Poland in order to make closing the distance in my prior relationship a little easier. He was in Scotland, but we were hoping having citizenship in the EU in general would make my life easier. Poland functioned similarly to the US in that they won't really ask, but it's discouraged. I just needed to prove I had at least a grand parent (up to great grandparent, I think) who was a Polish citizen.

My current s/o is okay with relocating here, so I'm no longer sweating the dual citizenship thing, though. I'll worry about that more as closing the distance becomes more of a real possibility.