For more than a decade, giving up US citizenship came with a $2,350 processing fee. That changed on 13 April 2026. Since then, the State Department's fee for processing a renunciation has been $450, down from $2,350, an 80% reduction.
The change came in a final rule published in the Federal Register on 13 March 2026. Six months on, the new fee is simply the price. But the fee was never the largest cost of leaving US citizenship, and the rule itself says so. What follows separates what got cheaper from what did not.
What the rule did
The rule changes one line in the State Department's Schedule of Fees for Consular Services: item 8, the administrative processing of a request for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN). The fee applies to people who renounce by oath before a US consular officer abroad, and also to those who ask for a CLN after another expatriating act, such as naturalising elsewhere with the intention of giving up US nationality.
The history explains the number. The Department first introduced a fee in 2010 at $450, a figure it describes as less than a quarter of its cost, chosen so as not to discourage people from using the service. Between 2010 and 2014 the number of requests rose sharply, and in 2014 the Department raised the fee to $2,350, its estimate of the full cost. It later extended the same fee to other forms of relinquishment, a step that became final in 2018.
The new rule returns to the 2010 level. The Department calls it "a policy decision" to ease the burden on people who request the service, and states that $450 still recovers only a fraction of the cost. It also notes that, adjusted for inflation, $450 is a smaller burden today than it was in 2010.
The Department places the new fee alongside other services it deliberately prices below cost for citizens abroad, naming the Consular Report of Birth Abroad as an example. The comparison is telling. The same consular system now charges a subsidised price both for documenting that a child born abroad is American and for documenting that an adult has stopped being one. In the Department's words, the aim is a fee "that does not deter individuals from seeking" the service, while recouping at least some of the cost. It also says it reviews its cost model every year and could revisit the approach in future.
Why the State Department did it
The rule is unusually candid about the reasons. The proposal was published on 2 October 2023 and drew 910 comments. According to the Department, 880 of them expressed frustration with the US system of taxing citizens wherever they live, and with the cost of compliance. Commenters described paying tax professionals every year even with no US tax to pay, being unable to open bank accounts, get mortgages or invest in local funds because of FATCA, and struggling with FBAR, PFIC and GILTI reporting.
The Department's answer is equally candid about its limits. It "cannot alter U.S. tax compliance laws for citizens residing overseas", nor address what commenters called double taxation. Lowering the fee was the one lever it controlled. The Brief explained the underlying system in Citizen-Based Taxation: Why the US Taxes You Abroad.
What the Department refused
Commenters asked for more than a lower fee, and the rule records what they did not get:
- No lower figure. Some asked for a fee near the cost of an adult passport renewal, around $130; a group proposed $63.25. The Department rejected both as far below the cost of the service.
- No exemption for "accidental Americans". A request that people born in the US but without meaningful ties pay nothing was declined: processing costs the same either way.
- No refunds. Commenters who had already paid $2,350 asked for the $1,900 difference back. The Department declined, holding that the old fee was correctly charged.
- No retroactivity. The fee applies only from the effective date.
- No video renunciations. The Department kept the in-person requirement, citing security and fraud concerns and the need for an officer to judge in person that the decision is voluntary and understood.
The Department's own estimate shows the scale: it projects around 4,661 requests a year, based on demand in fiscal year 2024, and an annual reduction of about $8.9 million in fees remitted to the Treasury.
How renunciation actually works
The rule describes the process step by step:
- The citizen contacts a US embassy or consulate, which explains the process and the consequences.
- The citizen attends two separate interviews with a consular or diplomatic officer.
- If they wish to proceed, they take the oath of renunciation in person at the second interview.
- The case file, with a recommendation, goes to the Office of American Citizen Services in Washington for review.
- If approved, the post issues the Certificate of Loss of Nationality, and copies go to other federal agencies.
Two practical consequences follow. First, renunciation happens abroad: the oath is taken before a US officer outside the United States. Second, it takes time, because two interviews and a central review sit between the first contact and the certificate. The fee did not change any of that.
What the fee cut did not change: the tax
The $450 buys a certificate. It does not end a person's US tax obligations on its own, and it says nothing about the tax due on the way out.
The date that counts. According to the IRS, a citizen is treated as relinquishing citizenship on the earliest of four dates. For a renunciation, that is the date of the oath before the consular officer, provided it is later approved by the issue of a CLN. The certificate confirms the date; it does not create it.
Form 8854. Every expatriating citizen files Form 8854. On it they certify whether they have complied with all US federal tax obligations for the five years before expatriation.
The covered expatriate tests. A person is a "covered expatriate", and subject to the exit tax regime of section 877A, if any one of three tests applies:
- their average annual net income tax for the five years before expatriation is above a threshold that Revenue Procedure 2025-32 sets at $211,000 for 2026;
- their net worth is $2 million or more on the expatriation date;
- they fail to certify five years of tax compliance on Form 8854.
Under the mark-to-market regime, all property of a covered expatriate is generally deemed sold at fair market value on the day before the expatriation date. For 2026, the first $910,000 of resulting gain is excluded. The Brief's earlier piece on the tax on leaving explains how this mark-to-market charge compares with other countries' exit taxes.
The third test is the trap for many ordinary emigrants. Someone with modest wealth and income can still become a covered expatriate simply because they cannot certify five years of compliance, often because they never filed while living abroad.
The relief route for people who never filed
For exactly that situation, the IRS publishes relief procedures for certain former citizens. They are available to people who expatriated after 18 March 2010 and who:
- have a net worth below $2 million, both at expatriation and when they use the procedures;
- have an aggregate tax liability of $25,000 or less for the year of expatriation and the five years before it;
- file all required returns, with schedules and information returns, for those six years.
Those who qualify are not covered expatriates and are not liable for unpaid taxes and penalties for those years. Taken together with the $450 fee, this means that for a person of modest means who simply never dealt with US filings, the cost of leaving cleanly is now largely the cost of catching up on paperwork.
Who the change matters to
The fee cut matters most to people for whom $1,900 was a meaningful barrier: young adults born in the United States who left as children, people with modest savings abroad, and families with several members to process. For a high-net-worth emigrant, the fee was always a rounding error next to the tax analysis.
It also matters for a reason that has nothing to do with money. The rule itself stresses that officers must make sure an applicant "fully understands the serious consequences of renunciation" and acts voluntarily. A lower fee makes the step cheaper; it does not make it smaller. A former citizen who keeps US assets is treated as a non-resident for US estate tax, which the Brief's piece on the US estate tax for non-residents describes. For families thinking in terms of options rather than exits, the two-passport family sets out why keeping a citizenship is often worth more than the cost of keeping it.
The short version
- The State Department fee for a Certificate of Loss of Nationality is $450 since 13 April 2026, down from $2,350. No refunds for those who paid the old fee.
- Renunciation still requires two in-person interviews abroad and an oath before a consular officer.
- The tax tests decide the real cost: $211,000 average annual net income tax for 2026, $2 million net worth, and five years of certified compliance.
- People with a net worth under $2 million and little tax at stake may be able to use the IRS relief procedures to leave without covered expatriate status.
Work with Sebastian
If you are an American abroad weighing whether to keep or give up US citizenship, and want the decision made on the full picture of tax, assets, family and future plans, that is the kind of cross-border question Sebastian works on with internationally mobile clients. Book a consultation.
