Claim Your Irish Dual Citizenship & EU Passport
Ireland maintains one of the world's most generous citizenship-by-descent legal statutes. If you have an Irish-born parent or grandparent, you have an inherent legal pathway to an Irish passport, granting full rights to live, work, and study anywhere across the European Union.
Irish Dual Citizenship & FBR Eligibility Assessment
Under the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956, millions of Americans qualify for an official Irish (EU) passport by descent. Complete this 30-second decision tree.
Were you born on the island of Ireland (including Northern Ireland)?
Official FBR Application Document Checklist
Check off your certificates as you assemble your dossier. Saved in your browser.
Get Irish Citizenship & FBR Processing Alerts
The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs periodically updates document guidelines, apostille mandates, and processing wait times. Enter your email to be notified when rules change.
Disclaimer: America.irish is an independent educational and genealogical information platform. We do not offer formal legal representation. Official citizenship grants are determined exclusively by the Department of Foreign Affairs of Ireland.
Automatic Irish Citizen
If either your mother or father was born on the island of Ireland (including the Republic or Northern Ireland), you are legally an Irish citizen from the moment of your birth—regardless of where you were born.
- Your full birth certificate with parent names
- Parent's original Irish birth certificate
- Parents' civil marriage certificate (if applicable)
Foreign Births Register (FBR)
If your parent was born outside Ireland, but your grandfather or grandmother was born on the island of Ireland, you are entitled to register as an Irish citizen through the Foreign Births Register (FBR) maintained in Dublin.
- Unbroken line of 3 generations of civil certificates
- Average processing timeframe: 8 to 10 months
- Enables all subsequent Irish passport privileges
The Step-by-Step FBR Application Procedure
Gather Civil Records
Obtain certified long-form birth, marriage, and death records for yourself, your Irish-connected parent, and your Irish-born grandparent.
Submit Online Application
Fill out the official DFA application online, pay the state statutory fees (€278 adult / €153 child), and print the application summary.
Witness & Mail Dossier
Have your photographs, identity document copies, and application verified by an acceptable professional witness (e.g. notary, attorney, doctor), and post to Dublin.
Receive Certificate
After review by the DFA, receive your official Irish Foreign Births Registration Certificate by tracked courier. You may then apply for your Irish EU Passport!
Frequently Asked Questions
Only under a very specific condition: your parent must have been registered in the Foreign Births Register before you were born. If your parent did not register prior to your birth, the legal descent chain ended at your parent's generation.
Yes. The United States does not require natural-born US citizens who acquire dual nationality through foreign birth or ancestry to choose between their citizenships. You may legally hold both a US passport and an Irish (EU) passport.
Civil birth records from 1864 onward can be ordered online through the General Register Office (GRO) of Ireland via HSE.ie. For Northern Ireland (counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Derry, Tyrone), records are obtained via PRONI and GRONI.
As an Irish citizen, you hold full European Union citizenship. This grants the unconditional legal right to live, work, open businesses, and study at EU-subsidized university rates across all 27 European Union member states. Additionally, under the Common Travel Area (CTA) agreement, Irish citizens retain the unique right to live and work in the United Kingdom without a visa.
Ready to Apply?
Visit the official Department of Foreign Affairs portal for the live registration system and government fee schedules.
Go to Official DFA Ireland Portal ↗