How to Restore Lost or Denied German Citizenship

Key Takeaways

• Five different legal provisions can grant or restore German citizenship outside the standard descent and naturalization routes. Each one has its own application, its own deciding authority, and its own evidence package.
• If your family’s citizenship line was never legally broken, none of these five routes applies to you. You only need the confirmation procedure under Section 30 of the Nationality Act, already covered in our descent guide.
• Article 116(2) of the Basic Law and Section 15 of the Nationality Act both apply to victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants. The split between them depends on exactly how your ancestor’s citizenship was lost, not on the persecution itself.
• Section 5 of the Nationality Act fixes a separate problem. That is outdated gender-discriminatory rules that blocked German citizenship from passing down at all. No persecution history is required for this route, and it closes permanently on 19 August 2031.
• Section 13 of the Nationality Act is a discretionary route for former Germans who gave up their citizenship voluntarily. It is the only one of the five routes where meeting the requirements does not guarantee approval.

Table of Contents

Germany recognizes six main paths to citizenship

• Naturalization
• Descent
• Adoption
• Birth
• Marriage
• Citizenship by declaration

This guide covers a routing question that sits underneath two of them: declaration and naturalization. If your family history involves a parent or ancestor who lost German citizenship, never received it, or was denied it under unusual circumstances, this guide helps you identify which of five specific legal provisions under the German Nationality Act fits your case.

Which German citizenship law fits my family history?

The table below summarizes the triggers for each route alongside the deciding authority and form.

Your Situation	Route	Authority and Form
Citizenship line never broken, needs confirmation	Section 30 StAG	BVA, Antrag F or FK
Citizenship directly taken under the 1933 Act or 1941 Decree	Article 116(2) of the Basic Law	BVA, no special form
Citizenship lost or denied some other way due to Nazi persecution	Section 15 StAG	BVA, Antrag E15 or E15-K plus Anlage AV
Gender-discriminatory rule blocked citizenship from passing down	Section 5 StAG	BVA, declaration form EER plus Anlage AV
Citizenship given up voluntarily, no persecution or discrimination	Section 13 StAG	BVA, discretionary application

Some family histories combine more than one of these triggers, or involve facts that do not fit neatly into any row above: disputed paternity, statelessness, citizenship questions that cross multiple countries, or borders that shifted between the events in question.

If your situation has more than one moving part, treat this table as a starting point for the conversation with an immigration lawyer, not a final answer.

Do You Need To Restore Citizenship Under Section 30 StAG Instead?

A person with a German parent who held German citizenship at the time of birth is already a German citizen. This stays true even if the family line skips a generation where nobody applied for a German passport, and even if a more distant relative already received their own certificate. Each person’s descent is assessed individually. A cousin’s approval does not transfer to you, and a generation-skip in paperwork does not break a legal claim that was never actually interrupted.

In this situation, you do not need a declaration or a naturalization decision. You need the Feststellungsverfahren, the confirmation procedure run by the Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA, the Federal Office of Administration) under Section 30 of the Nationality Act. BVA reviews your family’s documents and confirms the citizenship that already exists.

The harder question is telling this case apart from the next two sections. Section 30 alone will not fix a gender-discriminatory rule or a persecution-related event that actually broke the chain of citizenship at some point. You need one of the declaration or restitution routes below first. Only then does a Section 30 confirmation make sense for your own children.

Article 116(2) vs Section 15: Was Your Ancestor’s Citizenship Taken by the Nazi Regime?

Article 116(2) of the Basic Law and Section 15 of the Nationality Act both address citizenship lost or denied because of persecution between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945. The route that applies depends on exactly how the citizenship was lost, not on the persecution itself.

Article 116(2) of the Basic Law applies if your ancestor’s citizenship was directly taken from them. German law treats citizenship as “deprived” in two specific situations:

• It was lost automatically under the 11th Decree Implementing the Reich Citizens Act of 25 November 1941
• It was revoked on an individual basis under the Act on Revocation of Naturalizations and Deprivation of German Citizenship of 14 July 1933.

The first decree mainly affected German Jews who were abroad when it took effect. People affected by either instrument, and their descendants, have been entitled to naturalization under this article since 24 May 1949.

A Federal Constitutional Court ruling on 20 May 2020 (case 2 BvR 2628/18) widened who counts as a “descendant” under Article 116(2). It now also includes

• Children born in wedlock before 1 April 1953 to a mother who was stripped of her citizenship and a foreign father.
• Children born out of wedlock before 1 July 1993 to a father who was stripped of his citizenship and a foreign mother.

If your earlier application was rejected before this ruling, you can submit a new one. No special form is required for an Article 116(2) application.

Section 15 of the Nationality Act applies if your ancestor’s citizenship was lost or blocked through persecution, but not through direct deprivation under one of the two instruments above. This route was created by the Fourth Act Amending the Nationality Act and has been applied since 20 August 2021. It covers four situations.

• Your ancestor gave up or lost their citizenship before 26 February 1955 as a consequence of persecution (e.g., by acquiring a foreign citizenship or marrying a foreigner).
• Your ancestor was blocked from acquiring citizenship through marriage, legitimization, or a collective naturalization of ethnic Germans.
• Your ancestor applied for naturalization and was refused, or was generally excluded from naturalization that would otherwise have been available.
• Your ancestor lost their habitual residence in Germany if that residence was established before 30 January 1933, with a later date allowed for children.

This entitlement also extends to descendants. The application uses the following forms:

• Antrag E15 for applicants 16 and older, Antrag E15-K for younger applicants
• Anlage AV for each ancestor in the chain

The deciding question:

• Did the Nazi regime take your ancestor’s citizenship directly through the 1933 Act or the 1941 Decree? -> Article 116(2) applies.
• Did your ancestor lose or get denied citizenship in some other way connected to that persecution, such as fleeing and acquiring a different nationality? -> Section 15 applies.

Section 5 StAG: Did Outdated Gender Rules Stop Citizenship From Passing Down?

Outdated gender rules are the trigger for this route, not persecution. A parent’s sex or marital status could block citizenship from passing to their child under rules Germany has since reversed.

Section 5 of the Nationality Act allows a declaration of citizenship for four groups of people.

• Children of a German parent who did not acquire citizenship from that parent. This includes:
  • Children born in wedlock to a German mother and a foreign father before 1975.
  • Children born out of wedlock to a German father and a foreign mother before 1 July 1993.
• Children whose mothers lost their own German citizenship by marrying a non-German man before the child’s birth.
• Children who lost citizenship they had already acquired at birth, because their German mother later married their non-German father after the birth.
• Any descendant of someone eligible under the first three groups.

Section 5 only applies to people born after 23 May 1949, when the Basic Law took effect. If you were born before that date, a different provision applies, with additional conditions that this guide does not cover.

This route is time-limited. Your declaration must reach BVA by 19 August 2031. Current law sets no extension to that date.

Telling Section 5 apart from Section 30 comes down to these questions:

• Did the gender rule actually prevent your parent from acquiring or keeping German citizenship? You need the Section 5 declaration to create a citizenship status that never legally existed for you.
• Does your parent already hold an unbroken claim that just needs official confirmation? You only need the Section 30 confirmation procedure described above.

Section 13 StAG Renaturalization: Did You or Your Ancestor Give Up Citizenship Voluntarily?

Nobody took your citizenship under this route. No discriminatory rule blocked it either. You or your ancestor gave it up voluntarily, often by naturalizing in another country. This route covers getting it back.

Section 13 allows renaturalization for former Germans if it serves the public interest. Unlike the routes above, this is not a legal entitlement. BVA decides each application at its discretion. The minimum requirements are

• Ability to support yourself financially
• Adequate German language skills
• Very close ties to Germany
• No criminal record

If you are applying from abroad, your center of life (Lebensmittelpunkt) does not need to be in Germany, but you still need to show those close ties.

NOTE: Until 27 June 2024, German policy generally required giving up other citizenships as part of any naturalization, including under Section 13. Since the Staatsangehörigkeitsrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz reform took effect that day, Germany now generally accepts multiple nationality across all naturalization routes, so renaturalizing today usually does not require renouncing your current citizenship.

The date you lost German citizenship changes how hard this is.

• If you lost German citizenship on or after 1 January 2000, BVA checks whether you would have qualified to keep your citizenship had you applied for a retention permit at the time, plus your current ties to Germany.
• If you lost German citizenship before 1 January 2000, you must prove your renaturalization serves a particular public and national interest, a higher bar.

Because approval is discretionary and the application fee is non-refundable, you can make an informal enquiry with BVA or an immigration lawyer before filing, especially if your ties to Germany are not clear-cut. You can book the services of an immigration lawyer we recommend here.

FAQ

References:

• https://www.bva.bund.de/EN/Services/Citizens/ID-Documents-Law/Citizenship/116GG_15StA.html
• https://www.bva.bund.de/EN/Services/Citizens/ID-Documents-Law/Citizenship/citizenship_node.html
• https://www.germany.info/us-en/2370240-2370240
• https://uk.diplo.de/uk-en/citizenship-by-declaration/2472178
• https://uk.diplo.de/uk-en/02/renaturalisation-2463054
• https://www.bva.bund.de/DE/Services/Buerger/Ausweis-Dokumente-Recht/Staatsangehoerigkeit/Feststellung_Start/Feststellung/01_Informationen_Feststellung/01_02_F_wie_geht_es/01_02_F_wie_geht_es_node.html