Country-wide policy
Acquiring Another Citizenship Still Costs You This One, Unless You Had Lived There Five Years
Section 9(1)(b) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. lists the acquisition of a foreign citizenship by an express act of will as one of the two ways Slovak citizenship is lost, and section 9(16) makes it automatic: a Slovak citizen loses citizenship on the day they voluntarily acquire a foreign one on the basis of an express act of will, which the provision defines as an application, a declaration or any other act directed at acquiring it. Two savings exist. Section 9(17) preserves citizenship where the foreign citizenship was a spouse's acquired during the marriage, or was acquired by birth or adoption, or was acquired by a minor child. Section 9(18), in force since 1 April 2022, preserves it where the citizen had permitted, registered or otherwise recorded residence in that state for at least five years and actually stayed there during that time. Both savings carry a duty: the acquisition must be notified in writing to the district office in the regional seat within 90 days, with documents. For the people caught between 17 July 2010 and 31 March 2022, section 7(7) is a restoration route - citizenship shall be granted, without the eight-year residence condition, to an applicant who lost it in that window and who had five years of residence in the state whose citizenship they took. Nothing of this kind appears on the Czech record for the same topic, which reads the naturalisation conditions in sections 13 and 14 of Act No. 186/2013 Sb. and says expressly that the absence of a renunciation requirement is read off those conditions rather than off any provision permitting dual citizenship. Whether Czech law makes acquiring a foreign citizenship a ground of loss was not read here.
Topics it changes
What it requires
- Five years of recorded residence in the other state, and actual presence there, if you want to keep the Slovak citizenship
- Written notice to the district office in the regional seat within 90 days of acquiring the other citizenship
- Documents in paper form proving the acquisition and the length of residence
At a glance
- Acquiring another citizenship
- Ends Slovak citizenship on the day it is acquired
Section 9(16) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z., where the acquisition is by an express act of will.
- Saved if
- You had at least 5 years of recorded residence in that state
Section 9(18) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z., with actual presence there during that time.
- Also saved if
- The citizenship came from a spouse during the marriage, from birth, from adoption, or was acquired by a minor child
Section 9(17) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z.
- Notice
- 90 days, in writing, to the district office in the regional seat
Sections 9(17) and 9(18) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z., each with its own list of documents.
- Lost between 17 July 2010 and 31 March 2022
- Citizenship shall be granted back, with no residence condition
Section 7(7) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z., for an applicant who had five years of residence in the state whose citizenship they acquired.
- Czechia
- Not read: the Czech record covers the conditions for naturalisation, not the loss of citizenship
Its account of Act No. 186/2013 Sb. says the absence of a renunciation requirement is read off sections 13 and 14 rather than off any provision permitting dual citizenship.
What the law says
«Štátne občianstvo Slovenskej republiky možno stratiť a) prepustením zo štátneho zväzku Slovenskej republiky na vlastnú žiadosť, b) nadobudnutím cudzieho štátneho občianstva na základe výslovného prejavu vôle.»Our translation - not official
Citizenship of the Slovak Republic may be lost a) by release from the state bond of the Slovak Republic on one's own application, b) by acquiring a foreign citizenship on the basis of an express act of will.
Two ways, and the second needs no decision by anybody.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Slovak state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of Justice, which publishes the Zbierka zákonov Slovenskej republiky and keeps every instrument as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same corpus and they behave differently. www.slov-lex.sk is the live portal: a legacy address such as /pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/ answers HTTP 301 to redir.slov-lex.sk and again to /ezbierky/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/, which is an application page. static.slov-lex.sk is a complete static mirror at predictable addresses and is the one to read: /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ is the version history, /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.html is the version in force from that date, and /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.print.html is the same text without the navigation. The third is the PDF, at /pdf/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ZZ_{year}_{number}_{YYYYMMDD}.pdf, and for an instrument of any age it is the one with legal force: each version's header prints either Obsah dokumentu je právne záväzný or, for older instruments, Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter, and the HTML page says in terms that its content is informative and that the legally binding content is in the PDF. Version dates are the date the version took effect, so finding the text in force on a given day means reading the history page rather than guessing an address.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The HTML and the PDF are two manifestations of one document and only one of them can be quoted at length.** The static HTML is captured with the portal's own copy-to-clipboard icons between every block, which survive extraction as image markdown; a quotation that crosses a paragraph boundary therefore carries exclamation marks the publisher never wrote, and in the residence Act that is every lettered list. The PDF has no such furniture and extracts as clean single-column text, but it breaks a sentence wherever a footnote block or a running header falls: section 20(2) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., section 27(1) of the same Act and section 7(3) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. are each cut in half by a footnote, and section 23a(1)(e) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. is cut by a page break with the forty-hour limit on one page and the eighty-hour limit on the next. A quotation has to be taken from whichever side of the break its sentence survives on and cut short rather than stitched. **The informative-versus-binding line is not where its age suggests.** The PDF of Vyhláška No. 499/2011 Z. z. prints Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter on its own first page, so for that instrument neither manifestation is the promulgated text. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the register of occupations with a labour shortage by region, kept under section 12(ad) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family; the annexes to Government Regulation No. 521/2021 Z. z., which the portal serves as separate downloads rather than as part of the text; how much of that regulation's ceiling of 3,000 national visas remains at any moment, which nothing requires anyone to publish; the business plan template the Ministry of Economy publishes under section 32(5)(a) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z.; and the practice of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad in assessing national consciousness under Act No. 474/2005 Z. z. It is also not the place to read a figure that an opatrenie moves: Act No. 601/2003 Z. z. still prints 178.92 EUR in its own section 2(a), and the amount in force is in the ministerial measure, which is a separate instrument with its own address.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Štátny občan Slovenskej republiky stráca štátne občianstvo Slovenskej republiky dňom, ktorým na základe výslovného prejavu vôle, ktorým je žiadosť, vyhlásenie alebo iný úkon smerujúci k nadobudnutiu cudzieho štátneho občianstva, dobrovoľne nadobudne cudzie štátne občianstvo.»Our translation - not official
A citizen of the Slovak Republic loses citizenship of the Slovak Republic on the day on which, on the basis of an express act of will, being an application, a declaration or another act directed at acquiring a foreign citizenship, they voluntarily acquire a foreign citizenship.
By operation of law, on the day, with no act of any Slovak authority.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Slovak state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of Justice, which publishes the Zbierka zákonov Slovenskej republiky and keeps every instrument as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same corpus and they behave differently. www.slov-lex.sk is the live portal: a legacy address such as /pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/ answers HTTP 301 to redir.slov-lex.sk and again to /ezbierky/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/, which is an application page. static.slov-lex.sk is a complete static mirror at predictable addresses and is the one to read: /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ is the version history, /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.html is the version in force from that date, and /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.print.html is the same text without the navigation. The third is the PDF, at /pdf/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ZZ_{year}_{number}_{YYYYMMDD}.pdf, and for an instrument of any age it is the one with legal force: each version's header prints either Obsah dokumentu je právne záväzný or, for older instruments, Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter, and the HTML page says in terms that its content is informative and that the legally binding content is in the PDF. Version dates are the date the version took effect, so finding the text in force on a given day means reading the history page rather than guessing an address.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The HTML and the PDF are two manifestations of one document and only one of them can be quoted at length.** The static HTML is captured with the portal's own copy-to-clipboard icons between every block, which survive extraction as image markdown; a quotation that crosses a paragraph boundary therefore carries exclamation marks the publisher never wrote, and in the residence Act that is every lettered list. The PDF has no such furniture and extracts as clean single-column text, but it breaks a sentence wherever a footnote block or a running header falls: section 20(2) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., section 27(1) of the same Act and section 7(3) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. are each cut in half by a footnote, and section 23a(1)(e) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. is cut by a page break with the forty-hour limit on one page and the eighty-hour limit on the next. A quotation has to be taken from whichever side of the break its sentence survives on and cut short rather than stitched. **The informative-versus-binding line is not where its age suggests.** The PDF of Vyhláška No. 499/2011 Z. z. prints Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter on its own first page, so for that instrument neither manifestation is the promulgated text. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the register of occupations with a labour shortage by region, kept under section 12(ad) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family; the annexes to Government Regulation No. 521/2021 Z. z., which the portal serves as separate downloads rather than as part of the text; how much of that regulation's ceiling of 3,000 national visas remains at any moment, which nothing requires anyone to publish; the business plan template the Ministry of Economy publishes under section 32(5)(a) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z.; and the practice of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad in assessing national consciousness under Act No. 474/2005 Z. z. It is also not the place to read a figure that an opatrenie moves: Act No. 601/2003 Z. z. still prints 178.92 EUR in its own section 2(a), and the amount in force is in the ministerial measure, which is a separate instrument with its own address.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«K strate štátneho občianstva Slovenskej republiky podľa odseku 16 nedôjde, ak štátny občan Slovenskej republiky nadobudol cudzie štátne občianstvo manžela za trvania spoločného manželstva, alebo ak bolo cudzie štátne občianstvo nadobudnuté narodením, osvojením, alebo ak ho nadobudlo maloleté dieťa.»Our translation - not official
Loss of citizenship of the Slovak Republic under paragraph 16 shall not occur where a citizen of the Slovak Republic acquired the foreign citizenship of a spouse during the subsistence of the common marriage, or where the foreign citizenship was acquired by birth, by adoption, or where it was acquired by a minor child.
The sentence continues with a duty to notify the district office in the regional seat within 90 days.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Slovak state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of Justice, which publishes the Zbierka zákonov Slovenskej republiky and keeps every instrument as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same corpus and they behave differently. www.slov-lex.sk is the live portal: a legacy address such as /pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/ answers HTTP 301 to redir.slov-lex.sk and again to /ezbierky/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/, which is an application page. static.slov-lex.sk is a complete static mirror at predictable addresses and is the one to read: /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ is the version history, /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.html is the version in force from that date, and /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.print.html is the same text without the navigation. The third is the PDF, at /pdf/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ZZ_{year}_{number}_{YYYYMMDD}.pdf, and for an instrument of any age it is the one with legal force: each version's header prints either Obsah dokumentu je právne záväzný or, for older instruments, Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter, and the HTML page says in terms that its content is informative and that the legally binding content is in the PDF. Version dates are the date the version took effect, so finding the text in force on a given day means reading the history page rather than guessing an address.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The HTML and the PDF are two manifestations of one document and only one of them can be quoted at length.** The static HTML is captured with the portal's own copy-to-clipboard icons between every block, which survive extraction as image markdown; a quotation that crosses a paragraph boundary therefore carries exclamation marks the publisher never wrote, and in the residence Act that is every lettered list. The PDF has no such furniture and extracts as clean single-column text, but it breaks a sentence wherever a footnote block or a running header falls: section 20(2) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., section 27(1) of the same Act and section 7(3) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. are each cut in half by a footnote, and section 23a(1)(e) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. is cut by a page break with the forty-hour limit on one page and the eighty-hour limit on the next. A quotation has to be taken from whichever side of the break its sentence survives on and cut short rather than stitched. **The informative-versus-binding line is not where its age suggests.** The PDF of Vyhláška No. 499/2011 Z. z. prints Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter on its own first page, so for that instrument neither manifestation is the promulgated text. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the register of occupations with a labour shortage by region, kept under section 12(ad) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family; the annexes to Government Regulation No. 521/2021 Z. z., which the portal serves as separate downloads rather than as part of the text; how much of that regulation's ceiling of 3,000 national visas remains at any moment, which nothing requires anyone to publish; the business plan template the Ministry of Economy publishes under section 32(5)(a) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z.; and the practice of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad in assessing national consciousness under Act No. 474/2005 Z. z. It is also not the place to read a figure that an opatrenie moves: Act No. 601/2003 Z. z. still prints 178.92 EUR in its own section 2(a), and the amount in force is in the ministerial measure, which is a separate instrument with its own address.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«K strate štátneho občianstva Slovenskej republiky podľa odseku 16 nedôjde ani vtedy, ak štátny občan Slovenskej republiky nadobudol cudzie štátne občianstvo štátu, v ktorom mal v čase nadobudnutia cudzieho štátneho občianstva povolený pobyt, registrovaný pobyt alebo inak evidovaný pobyt najmenej päť rokov; podmienka pobytu sa považuje za splnenú, ak sa štátny občan Slovenskej republiky na území cudzieho štátu počas tejto doby skutočne zdržiaval.»Our translation - not official
Loss of citizenship of the Slovak Republic under paragraph 16 shall also not occur where a citizen of the Slovak Republic acquired the citizenship of a state in which, at the time of acquiring the foreign citizenship, they had permitted residence, registered residence or otherwise recorded residence for at least five years; the residence condition is considered met where the citizen of the Slovak Republic actually stayed on the territory of the foreign state during that time.
The saving that made emigration survivable, and it only arrived on 1 April 2022.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Slovak state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of Justice, which publishes the Zbierka zákonov Slovenskej republiky and keeps every instrument as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same corpus and they behave differently. www.slov-lex.sk is the live portal: a legacy address such as /pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/ answers HTTP 301 to redir.slov-lex.sk and again to /ezbierky/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/, which is an application page. static.slov-lex.sk is a complete static mirror at predictable addresses and is the one to read: /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ is the version history, /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.html is the version in force from that date, and /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.print.html is the same text without the navigation. The third is the PDF, at /pdf/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ZZ_{year}_{number}_{YYYYMMDD}.pdf, and for an instrument of any age it is the one with legal force: each version's header prints either Obsah dokumentu je právne záväzný or, for older instruments, Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter, and the HTML page says in terms that its content is informative and that the legally binding content is in the PDF. Version dates are the date the version took effect, so finding the text in force on a given day means reading the history page rather than guessing an address.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The HTML and the PDF are two manifestations of one document and only one of them can be quoted at length.** The static HTML is captured with the portal's own copy-to-clipboard icons between every block, which survive extraction as image markdown; a quotation that crosses a paragraph boundary therefore carries exclamation marks the publisher never wrote, and in the residence Act that is every lettered list. The PDF has no such furniture and extracts as clean single-column text, but it breaks a sentence wherever a footnote block or a running header falls: section 20(2) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., section 27(1) of the same Act and section 7(3) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. are each cut in half by a footnote, and section 23a(1)(e) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. is cut by a page break with the forty-hour limit on one page and the eighty-hour limit on the next. A quotation has to be taken from whichever side of the break its sentence survives on and cut short rather than stitched. **The informative-versus-binding line is not where its age suggests.** The PDF of Vyhláška No. 499/2011 Z. z. prints Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter on its own first page, so for that instrument neither manifestation is the promulgated text. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the register of occupations with a labour shortage by region, kept under section 12(ad) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family; the annexes to Government Regulation No. 521/2021 Z. z., which the portal serves as separate downloads rather than as part of the text; how much of that regulation's ceiling of 3,000 national visas remains at any moment, which nothing requires anyone to publish; the business plan template the Ministry of Economy publishes under section 32(5)(a) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z.; and the practice of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad in assessing national consciousness under Act No. 474/2005 Z. z. It is also not the place to read a figure that an opatrenie moves: Act No. 601/2003 Z. z. still prints 178.92 EUR in its own section 2(a), and the amount in force is in the ministerial measure, which is a separate instrument with its own address.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
«Bez splnenia podmienky podľa odseku 1 písm. a) sa udelí štátne občianstvo Slovenskej republiky žiadateľovi, ktorý stratil štátne občianstvo Slovenskej republiky nadobudnutím cudzieho štátneho občianstva v období od 17. júla 2010 do 31. marca 2022, ak žiadateľ nadobudol cudzie štátne občianstvo štátu, v ktorom mal v čase nadobudnutia cudzieho štátneho občianstva povolený pobyt, registrovaný pobyt alebo inak evidovaný pobyt najmenej päť rokov a predložil doklady v listinnej podobe preukazujúce tieto skutočnosti;»Our translation - not official
Citizenship of the Slovak Republic shall be granted, without meeting the condition under paragraph 1(a), to an applicant who lost citizenship of the Slovak Republic by acquiring a foreign citizenship in the period from 17 July 2010 to 31 March 2022, where the applicant acquired the citizenship of a state in which, at the time of acquiring the foreign citizenship, they had permitted residence, registered residence or otherwise recorded residence for at least five years and submitted documents in paper form proving those facts;
Shall, not may, which is rare in this Act: section 7(1) and most of section 7(2) say may.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The Slovak state's own legal information system, run by the Ministry of Justice, which publishes the Zbierka zákonov Slovenskej republiky and keeps every instrument as a series of point-in-time versions. Three addresses serve the same corpus and they behave differently. www.slov-lex.sk is the live portal: a legacy address such as /pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/ answers HTTP 301 to redir.slov-lex.sk and again to /ezbierky/pravne-predpisy/SK/ZZ/2011/404/, which is an application page. static.slov-lex.sk is a complete static mirror at predictable addresses and is the one to read: /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ is the version history, /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.html is the version in force from that date, and /static/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/{YYYYMMDD}.print.html is the same text without the navigation. The third is the PDF, at /pdf/SK/ZZ/{year}/{number}/ZZ_{year}_{number}_{YYYYMMDD}.pdf, and for an instrument of any age it is the one with legal force: each version's header prints either Obsah dokumentu je právne záväzný or, for older instruments, Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter, and the HTML page says in terms that its content is informative and that the legally binding content is in the PDF. Version dates are the date the version took effect, so finding the text in force on a given day means reading the history page rather than guessing an address.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: **The HTML and the PDF are two manifestations of one document and only one of them can be quoted at length.** The static HTML is captured with the portal's own copy-to-clipboard icons between every block, which survive extraction as image markdown; a quotation that crosses a paragraph boundary therefore carries exclamation marks the publisher never wrote, and in the residence Act that is every lettered list. The PDF has no such furniture and extracts as clean single-column text, but it breaks a sentence wherever a footnote block or a running header falls: section 20(2) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z., section 27(1) of the same Act and section 7(3) of Act No. 40/1993 Z. z. are each cut in half by a footnote, and section 23a(1)(e) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. is cut by a page break with the forty-hour limit on one page and the eighty-hour limit on the next. A quotation has to be taken from whichever side of the break its sentence survives on and cut short rather than stitched. **The informative-versus-binding line is not where its age suggests.** The PDF of Vyhláška No. 499/2011 Z. z. prints Obsah tohto dokumentu má informatívny charakter on its own first page, so for that instrument neither manifestation is the promulgated text. It cannot be cited for anything the Collection does not carry: the register of occupations with a labour shortage by region, kept under section 12(ad) of Act No. 5/2004 Z. z. by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family; the annexes to Government Regulation No. 521/2021 Z. z., which the portal serves as separate downloads rather than as part of the text; how much of that regulation's ceiling of 3,000 national visas remains at any moment, which nothing requires anyone to publish; the business plan template the Ministry of Economy publishes under section 32(5)(a) of Act No. 404/2011 Z. z.; and the practice of the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad in assessing national consciousness under Act No. 474/2005 Z. z. It is also not the place to read a figure that an opatrenie moves: Act No. 601/2003 Z. z. still prints 178.92 EUR in its own section 2(a), and the amount in force is in the ministerial measure, which is a separate instrument with its own address.
We re-read it every 60 days. More about this source
Practical notes
Losing citizenship this way has consequences beyond the passport. Section 9(21) and (22) end a state service relationship or an office whose exercise is conditional on Slovak citizenship on the day of the loss.
The savings in sections 9(17) and 9(18) are not automatic in practice: each carries a 90-day notification duty with documents, and section 9(18) lets the district office record the loss where the five-year residence turns out not to be made out.
Nothing here was read about how the district offices apply the actual-presence test in section 9(18), which is where the saving will be won or lost.