The U.S. Department of State has published a change to their Consular Fees: they are now charging the same amount of money for relinquishing U.S. nationality as they are for renouncing it:
Documentation for Loss of Nationality
The Department is expanding the application of and renaming item 8 in the Schedule of Fees to “Administrative Processing of Request for Certificate of Loss of Nationality.” The fee will be applied to cover not only services to U.S. nationals (i.e., U.S. citizens and non-citizen nationals) who relinquish nationality by taking the oath of renunciation under 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(5), but also to cover services to U.S. nationals who relinquish nationality under 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(1) to 1481(a)(4) or any earlier-in-time relinquishment statutes administered by the Department of State and request a Certificate of Loss of Nationality. Currently, the fee is paid by those taking the oath of renunciation under 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(5) at the time the oath is sworn. The fee would be collected from an individual claiming to have relinquished nationality at the time that person requests the Certificate of Loss of Nationality (that is, after completing Form DS-4079 and signing before a consular officer Part II of Form DS-4079 entitled “Statement of Voluntary Relinquishment of U.S. Citizenship”). The Fiscal Year 2012 Cost of Service Model update demonstrated that documenting a U.S. national’s relinquishment of nationality is extremely costly whether the service is for a relinquishment under 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(1) to 1481(a)(4) or a relinquishment by renunciation under 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(5). Both require American consular officers overseas to spend substantial amounts of time to accept, process, and adjudicate cases. The cost of the service is not limited to the time consular officers spend with individuals prior to and at appointments. The application is reviewed both overseas and domestically to ensure full compliance with the law. The consular officer must determine that the individual is indeed a U.S. national, advise the individual on the consequences of loss of nationality, and ensure that the individual fully understands the consequences of loss, including the inability to reside in the United States unless properly documented as an alien. Through documentary review, consideration of the individual’s circumstances, and careful interviewing, the consular officer also must determine whether the individual is seeking loss of nationality voluntarily and with the requisite intent, as required by U.S. Supreme Court case law and by statute (8 U.S.C. 1481). This determination can be especially demanding in the case of minors or individuals with a developmental disability or mental illness.
The consular officer must also ensure that the commission of an expatriating act was as prescribed by statute, which is often an issue in non-renunciation relinquishment cases. The loss of nationality service must be documented on several forms and in consular systems as well as in a memorandum from the consular officer to the Department’s Directorate of Overseas Citizens Services in Washington, DC (“OCS”), in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. All forms and memoranda are closely reviewed in OCS by a country officer and a senior approving officer, and may include consultation with legal advisers. This review entails close examination of whether the requirements of voluntariness and intent are satisfied in the individual case. Some applications require multiple rounds of correspondence between post and the Department. The final approval of the loss of nationality must be done by law within the Department (8 U.S.C. 1501), by OCS, after which the case is returned to the consular officer overseas for final delivery of the Certificate of Loss of Nationality to the individual. In addition, every individual issued a Certificate of Loss of Nationality is advised of the possibility of seeking a future Administrative Review of the loss of nationality, a time-consuming process that is conducted by OCS’s Office of Legal Affairs.
Currently, nationals who renounce nationality pay a fee of $2,350, while nationals who apply for documentation of relinquishment of nationality by the voluntary commission of an expatriating act with the intention to lose nationality, do not pay a fee. However the services performed in both situations are similar, requiring close and detailed case-by-case review of the factors involved in a request for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality, and both result in similar costs to the Department.
In the past, individuals seldom requested Certificates of Loss of Nationality from the Department to document relinquishment. Although the Department was aware that an individual relinquishment service was among the most time consuming of consular services, it was rarely performed so the overall cost to the Department was low and the Department did not establish a fee. Requests for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality on the basis of a non-renunciatory relinquishment have increased significantly in recent years, and the Department expects the number to grow in the future, causing the total cost of this service to increase. At the same time, the Department funds consular services completely from user fees. The Cost of Service Model continues to demonstrate that such costs are incurred by the Department when accepting, processing, and adjudicating relinquishment of nationality cases; therefore, the Department will collect a fee from all individuals seeking a Certificate of Loss of Nationality. Taking into account the costs of both renunciation and non-renunciation relinquishment processes, the fee will be $2,350.
This means that it costs ALL American nationals thousands of dollars to change their nationality. Of course, this affects primarily the middle class and less wealthy. However, even if you make the assumption that this is an exit tax for the wealthy expat trying to avoid U.S. duties, this fee doesn’t discourage or hurt them. A tax dodger that the U.S. IRS is interested in most likely wealthy, and even if they qualified for the relinquishment instead of renunciation, a $2,350 fee is nothing for them. Accidental Americans, referring to people who don’t live in America yet acquired U.S. nationality involuntarily (such as through birth) and never use it (or weren’t even aware they possessed it until recently), give up their U.S. nationality not because they don’t wish to pay U.S. taxes, but rather because they fear the fines and/or legal hassles associated with making a mistake when constantly filing the annual (or more frequent) paperwork to the IRS. Making a mistake is easy to do, because living overseas with foreign income and assets (possibly mixed with domestic assets) makes error-less filing much more difficult.
The prose above gives a lot of reasons for the price increase, claiming that the processes for the consular officers is time and cost consuming. I, however, having relinquished my U.S. nationality (for the purpose of naturalizing to another country — that doesn’t allow dual nationality — where my family, career, and home have been for decades) at the Tokyo Embassy, have experienced the process first hand. My experience? I was less than impressed with the amount of work it entailed. In particular, I did a lot of the work (proving my U.S. nationality) myself, not the consular staff. And a lot of the other work was done by the State Department in the U.S., not the local Embassy staff. You can read about my personal relinquishment experience here:
- Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 1 of 4)
- Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 2 of 4)
- Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 3 of 4)
- Relinquishing U.S. citizenship in Tokyo (part 4 of 4)
I am willing to bet that a lot of other procedures that the state department performs, such as registering a U.S. birth or marriage overseas, require many of the same procedural checks (such as verifying U.S. nationality) that losing one’s nationality requires, yet the fees for other services are nowhere as near as high.
I also wonder, if by charging an exorbitant fee, America isn’t running afoul of the spirit of the U.N. Human Rights agreements that it agreed to and signed off on. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 15 states:
Article 15.
- Everyone has the right to a nationality.
- No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
One could possibly argue that by charging an exorbitant amount to “change” one’s nationality (change meaning not just acquiring a nationality, but losing one’s nationality voluntarily as well), America is attempting to prevent most Americans in the situation where they need to change their nationality (most who do so do it for family and personal reasons, not exclusively for tax avoidance reasons) from doing so.
The document about this change is asking for comments. I recommend posting your (polite and civil) comments to the document if you think that the fee is excessive.
If you refuse. You won’t receive a CLN. You will however have notified them that you relinquished. That might be worth something. Good luck
@Duke, I have been wondering what would happen if someone applies for a US Passport and states as part of the application they performed relinquishing act X, voluntarily and intentionally to relinquish and they are applying for said passport solely because a border officer said they needed one.
Seriously, they are turning themselves into a bad pretzel……
I used to think obtaining a CLN would be like winning a Golden Wonka Ticket, but those days are long gone.
Even though I statutorily relinquished my US citizenship on my 25th birthday in 1984, I do not have a CLN to document that fact and do not intend to ever apply for one, with or without the new fees. My greatest concern in popping my head up from behind the bushes would be to unwittingly out my own parents and siblings and to transform a theoretical possibility of IRS persecution into a near certainty.
Instead, I will take my chances on remaining an undocumented relinquisher and dealing with the consequences only when – and if – they ever arise. That will NEVER include approaching a US embassy or consulate to play their little game. To prostrate myself before them, confess my sins about why I ran away from the plantation, beg for their forgiveness, pray that they will be merciful, then pay weeks worth of my hard-earned wages for a fucking piece of paper that banks and governments worldwide may rightfully choose to ignore anyway, for why should they trust anything that has the stamp of the US Government on it?
Sorry, but there are many more ways in life I could choose to humiliate myself – capitulating to the demands of an utterly immoral failed state is not going to be one of them.
@ Deckard1138
Well you’re not alone. I’m noncompliant, recalcitrant and quietly defiant. Most emphatically, I am not and have never been a U.S. citizen and I reject their phony-baloney classification of U.S. person.
A bit off topic but I do not know how to start a new thread but I found this in Accounting Today a couple if days ago. Looks like the IRS has started to recipticate.
IRS Begins Exchanging Tax Info with Other Countries under FATCA
+12 WASHINGTON, D.C. (OCTOBER 2, 2015)
BY MICHAEL COHN

The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has met a key milestone relating to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA, having begun exchanging tax information with certain foreign governments in time to meet a Sept. 30, 2015 deadline.

John Koskinen
The automatic exchange of account information with tax authorities abroad was part of the intergovernmental agreements that the Treasury Department negotiated with foreign governments in an effort to implement the law.
FATCA was included as part of the HIRE Act of 2010 and requires foreign financial institutions to send the IRS information on the accounts of U.S. taxpayers, or else face stiff penalties of up to 30 percent on their income from U.S. sources. The law has attracted controversy abroad, prompting the Treasury to negotiate agreements with other countries to allow for reciprocal exchange of tax information on both U.S. and foreign taxpayers from both U.S. and
foreign banks, in accordance with existing tax treaties to prevent double taxation. In most cases, the agreements allow the banks to first turn over the information to their own countries’ tax authorities before it is handed over to the IRS or a tax authority in another country.
To meet the Sept. 30 milestone, the IRS said it developed an information system infrastructure, procedures, and data use and the information exchange is part of the IRS’s overall efforts to implement FATCA, enacted in 2010 by Congress to target non-compliance by U.S. taxpayers using foreign accounts
or foreign entities. FATCA generally requires withholding agents to withhold on certain payments made to foreign financial institutions unless they agree to report to the IRS information about financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers, or by foreign entities in which U.S. taxpayers hold a substantial ownership interest.
In response to the enactment of FATCA and other jurisdictions’ interest in facilitating and participating in the exchange of financial account information, the U.S. government entered into a number of bilateral IGAs that set the groundwork for cooperation between the jurisdictions in this area. Certain IGAs not only enable the IRS to receive this information from FFIs, but also enable, according to the IRS, more efficient exchange by allowing a foreign jurisdiction tax administration to gather the specified information and provide it to the IRS. Some IGAs also require the IRS to reciprocally exchange certain information about accounts maintained by residents of foreign jurisdictions in U.S. financial institutions with their jurisdictions’ tax authorities.
Under these reciprocal IGAs, the first exchange had to take place by September 30, giving the IRS a deadline to put in place a process to facilitate this data exchange.
The IRS said the information now available provides the United States and its partner jurisdictions an improved means of verifying the tax compliance of taxpayers using offshore banking and investment facilities, and improves detection of those who may attempt to evade reporting the existence of offshore accounts and the income attributable to those accounts.
The IRS said it will only engage in reciprocal exchange with foreign jurisdictions that, among other requirements, meet the IRS’s stringent safeguard, privacy, and technical standards. Before exchanging with a particular jurisdiction, the U.S. conducted detailed reviews of that jurisdiction’s laws and infrastructure concerning the use and protection of taxpayer data, cyber-security capabilities, as well as security practices and procedures.
“This groundbreaking effort has fundamentally altered our relationship with tax authorities around the world, giving us all a much stronger hand in fighting illegal tax avoidance and leveling the playing field,” Koskinen said.
Meeting the Sept. 30 deadline reflects the agency’s collaboration and partnership with dozens of jurisdictions around the world. The capacity for reciprocal automatic exchange builds on a number of accomplishments, including the development of a consistent data reporting format, or schema, and the agreement to use this format by all jurisdictions; establishment of the details and procedures required to assure data confidentiality; creation of a data transmission system to meet high standards for encryption and security; and cooperation with foreign jurisdiction tax administrations to achieve the timely implementation of this exchange.
Koskinen pointed out that the risks of hiding money offshore are growing and the potential rewards are shrinking. Since 2009, tens of thousands of individuals have come forward voluntarily to disclose their foreign financial accounts, taking advantage of special opportunities to comply with the U.S. tax system and resolve their tax obligations. At the beginning of 2012, the IRS reopened the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, which the IRS said is open until otherwise announced.
1 Comment
FATCA is a laudable endeavor by the United States Government and we as a CPA Firm are now providing compliance services to foreign financial institutions. One claim that we hear repeatedly is what guarantees exist that the information the United States will share with foreign governments will not get into the wrong hands (ie extortionists and kidnappers). Well actually there are no guarantees, once the information is handed over to a foreign government all control is lost. The United States assumes that other governments will act the same as it does, safeguarding this information, but that is a rather naive position. People are going to get hurt and that is the price they will pay for having invested in the United States.
Posted by: Daniel H | October 5, 2015 5:43 PM
Perfect, Deckard1138.
@Duke of Devon, @Deckard1138
I shall come back with the info whether the German government/banks accept my not being able to produce a CLN due to the immorally high fee and finalize my legal status as a German citizen.
For hours and hours I have tried to find out the ramifications on being an undocumented relinquisher and wasn’t able to yet. However, it is extremely important not to be considered a dual national due to not being able to produce the CLN because any time soon the banks and related institutions could refuse me service based on FATCA as many Americans abroad have reported here:
https://www.democratsabroad.org/sites/default/files/2014%20FATCA%20Research%20%20Stories%20of%20FATCA%20-%20Affecting%20Everyday%20Americans%20Every%20Day.pdf
@ Deckard1138
Your link to not popping up from behind the bushes was spot on and brought on relief through humor! Thank you.
@nevada
Undocumented relinquisher no longer exists rather it is self documented relinquisher
Hat tip to the Canadian doctor who had to provestatus to a fi without a cln and won.
That document from state which lists that few people get a cln could be useful in your file
@Eido,
Any thoughts on whether this might be considered a sufficiently high hurdle for Japan to waive the requirement to produce a CLN within 2 years of naturalization or turning 20?
Nevada: for what it’s worth my accounts were terminated (in 2014) by Deutsche Bank Belgium for being a US Person (born in the US was the give-away — I had opened the accounts with my EU documents). They explicitly stated that they had decided not to deal with US persons because of FATCA. So yes, banks will ask for a CLN. Please keep us informed as to how you function without one. Since Germany apparently recognized that the CLN was overpriced, perhaps that official decision could be used, in addition to other evidence of loss of nationality, as to how you can have relinquished but not obtained the CLN. I imagine you may have to threaten and cajole some of the banks — they won’t accept it easily in my opinion, although they could, legally, should they want to. It would be fantastic if you could work this without a CLN, effectively bypassing that fee, and setting a precedent. Good luck!
@Nevada, let me restate what a Canadian doctor did and reported back on these boards.
He was ratted out at his Canadian FI.
He did not want a CLN because US Law does not require it (confirmed by Congressional Reports), few people have one (now confirmed a week ago by the US State Department) and he flatly did not trust the USG.
He went to a lawyer and had some sort of affadavit prepared that was provided to the FI with a copy of 8 US Code and said that was his “reasonable explanation.”
The FI accepted the explanation and that was before the relinquishment fee came into issue which happens in weeks.
IMO, self documented relinquishment will now be easier because of the fee and because the State Department has stated in writing that “few people” ever applied for one.
Further IMO, it was more difficult to be a non CLN relinquisher because it was FREE!! There was “no excuse not to get one.” But now it is costly and State acknowledges that few got one.
To be honest, I think non US Persons and compliance people think “everybody” who relinquished somehow got one of those CLNs!!! After all a Non-USA “CLN counterpart” is cheap and easy to get through the post!!
Regardless, you will at a minimum need to prove you committed a relinquishing act with documents, get a lawyer involved to cement up the intention and show what the US Law actually is on nationality.
The old day of simply stating “I am not a USC anymore” is long gone.
@Fred, yes you are right we are all subject to the discrimination that many simply do not want to have anything to do with anyone who has US taint. IMO a CLN will not stop that discrimination either!!
I am effectively unemployed/underemployed and have been turned down for employment/partnering that I am well qualified for because of a US place of birth. It made no difference that I relinquished and even without a CLN, I do have USG documents stating that I am not a USC!!! No one wants to take the chance.
I had part 1 of the relinquishment procedure by phone. It was real easy, just had to confirm what I had filled out in the forms. I will not have to pay the 2350$ fee because the second and personal appearance appointment will be before Nov. 9th, 2015 from when on the fee will be charged for relinquishments (Berlin, Germany).
@George: that really sucks. I can only imagine how you feel when you read that that “illusory” damage was “self-inflicted”, and in no way due to USG actions.
A foreign bank could still refuse to do business even with those holding CLNs because they could still be arguably US Persons for tax purposes if they ever overstayed too many days in the US or ever subsequently acquired green cards; they could even in future marry a US Person and in theory choose to file jointly or transfer an account to joint names with a US person. I’m thus not convinced that a CLN will always be sufficient.
There’s also a risk that a former citizen or green card holder may have expatriated and received a CLN without having properly formerly exited the U.S. tax system if he or she hasn’t certified five years full tax compliance via 8854. Though I may be misunderstanding things, I believe one is still deemed a US tax citizen if they have never filed 8854, even though they may have received a CLN. Giving up US citizenship is thus at least a two-step process: actual citizenship (or green card status) and tax citizenship.
It’s not easy to divorce the US.
@monalisa…………..
I am with you 100%.
I am surprised that FFIs do not ask “Are you a Covered Expat?”
If the IRS required them to, they would, George. I’ve heard of banks however sending customers to independent tax accountants.
@Bubblebustin
Since the start of this… I use to trust things… gov’t… banks… because my eyes have been slammed wide open…. I trust neither… I am suspect of lots of things now that I never did before… don’t think its a good thing but its hard to trust things when the things u use to trust betrays u
I finally read the 4 pages that Inoue san linked to in his posting here, describing what the US embassy here in Tokyo did.
In 2011 it wasn’t that hard. First I sent them my US passport and a description of what I believed was a relinquishing act. They phoned saying that my act wasn’t a relinquishing one and asking to return my passport, but I persuaded them to keep my passport. A few months later I wrote again, and they phoned again, and we made an appointment. They figured out that we only needed two interviews not three. Besides my letters, I seem to recall telephoning an employee of the passport department who had given me her phone number, and getting through (i.e. not voice mail), but my call was short and I don’t really remember the topic.
My interviews weren’t conducted in public. They were in a room with a sign indicating that the room is normally used for deposing witnesses in court cases (for example when a witness isn’t eligible for a visa to go to the US to testify). If they wanted to charge the posted price to rent that room they could get a lot more than $2,350 per renunciation.
During the last interview a consular officer asked if I really wanted to do that, because she couldn’t let me renounce if it wasn’t voluntary. I answered that I had to do it. Later we chatted a bit, and I mentioned that on US tax returns I used to write honest declarations of known problems instead of committing perjury. She interrupted me to say “Good.” I continued, “I get penalized for it.” She looked shocked and she was speechless. I guess that was the moment she understood why I was renouncing.
The increased difficulty since 2011 isn’t likely due to events that happened in 2001. It’s more likely due to FATCA driving up the number of renunciations more than the IRS’s crackdown on honesty did.
@Nevada
You’re welcome. Especially in the midst of this madness, we need a little humour. That Python clip has served us well over the last few years – it never gets old.
Mona Lisa I thought I had you convinced to stop fussing. You have your CLN. You’re free.
@monalisa1776
“A foreign bank could still refuse to do business even with those holding CLNs because they could still be arguably US Persons for tax purposes if…”
Every person on this planet could arguably be US persons for tax purposes. It has nothing to do with having a CLN or not, or being a former US citizen or not.
@ monalisa1776 It’s not easy to divorce the US
you are entirely 100% correct with this statement
however
it is certainly easier to make up you own mind as to what is best in your situation and given that decision you can leave all the BS about amerika owning you until they say the don’t and get on with your life.
as a self relinquisher it took me a while to accept that i was done with ever traveling to the “homeland” ever again however once i reached the acceptance stage my life went from anger to calm.
i do not need amerika to live a productive and happy life and i refuse to live in fear of a foreign state!!
@Duke of Devon, I certainly hope you prove to be right. I appreciate your efforts to reassure me. 😉
@Not Amused, I agree that the U.S. could in theory deem anyone they like a ‘U.S. tax person’ but it doesn’t make me feel any easier in the meantime.
@Mettleman, I suppose my issue is that I still have open statutes of limitations from a quiet disclosure I made in 2011 which won’t fully close till July next year; I also believe that filing 8854 has a six year statute of limitation, so I won’t be fully clear till sometime in mid-2020. I also have complicated PFIC calculations that won’t fully close till the end of 2018; so still not quite out of the woods!!
And furthermore, I have elderly parents who expect me to visit at least every two years and ideally EVERY year. They, like my husband, think I’m exaggerating the risks but I am still a nervous wreck because an audit could cost me many thousands. My particular concern is that we never receive confirmation that they’ve actually received the 8854; if they decided to be awkward and claim they never received it, they could try to take a huge chunk out of my pension fund if they were to consider me a ‘covered expatriate’. There’s still the damn PFICs that are still open for the next couple of years.
I agree that if I never had to go back to the States to visit that I would have nothing to really worry about but with family ties, I still need to get back regularly. I also worry that any possible future inheritance from my parents could be threatened if the IRS were to play rough.
To be honest, my biggest fear rather than further loss of money is that the US may become even more spiteful and try to ban former citizens, especially those of us who RENOUNCED rather than relinquished any further visiting rights.
After all, they’re now charging relinquishers the horrible $2350 fee; so who’s to say they won’t further punish those with the ‘gall’ to actually RENOUNCE?!? I am afraid that I am still biting my nails, though agree that it’s a HUGE relief to now be in possession of a CLN.
What a nightmare this has all been.