Slovak Republic

Slovak citizenship law is governed by Act No. 40/1993 Coll. on Citizenship of the Slovak Republic, most recently amended by Act No. 69/2026 Coll. (effective 12 June 2026) and Act No. 128/2026 Coll. (effective 15 July 2026). Descendants of people from Slovakia reach it by three distinct channels. First, anyone with a parent who was a Slovak citizen at the time of their birth is already a Slovak citizen by descent (§ 5(1)(a)); such people do not naturalise but have their existing status confirmed by a citizenship certificate (osvedčenie o štátnom občianstve, § 9a). Second — the route that matters for most diaspora applicants — a person who has never been a Slovak citizen may be granted citizenship if at least one parent, grandparent or great-grandparent was a Czechoslovak citizen born on the territory of today's Slovak Republic (§ 7(8)). This route was introduced with effect from 1 April 2022 by Act No. 72/2022 Coll., then as § 7(2)(j) and subject to the § 7(2) requirement of a Slovak residence permit; since 15 July 2026 it stands as a free-standing § 7(8) with no residence condition at all, so applicants may apply from abroad with no connection to Slovakia other than the ancestor.

Third, former citizens have re-acquisition routes, none of them as wide as they first appear. Section 7(6) does say that citizenship "shall be granted" to a former Slovak citizen who was released from the state bond under Act No. 40/1993 — but only where the applicant produces a document showing that no other state has granted them citizenship. Since § 9(2) permits release only on proof of another citizenship or a promise of one, the entitlement in practice reaches only the narrow group whose promised foreign citizenship never materialised; a former Slovak citizen who is now, say, an American or Canadian citizen has no entitlement under it. Such a person is left with the discretionary § 7(2)(i), which sits under a chapeau requiring a Slovak residence permit and is therefore unavailable from abroad, or — for release under the 1949 or 1968 acts — the discretionary but residence-free § 7(5). Separately, a person who lost Slovak citizenship between 17 July 2010 and 31 March 2022 by voluntarily acquiring a foreign citizenship is entitled to a re-grant under § 7(7) if, when they naturalised, they had held authorised, registered or otherwise recorded residence in that state for at least five years and they submit hard-copy documents proving it.

All naturalisation applicants, including those under § 7(8), must satisfy the general conditions of § 7(1)(b)–(g), (i) and (j): good character, no court-imposed penalty of expulsion, no pending criminal, extradition or administrative-expulsion proceedings, no pending proceedings to withdraw asylum or subsidiary protection, compliance with Slovak residence, health-insurance, social-insurance, tax and levy obligations, and no threat to public order or security. Good character is defined negatively in § 7(1)(b) by three five-year clocks, none of which runs from the date of the offence: a conviction for an intentional offence disqualifies until five years have passed since that conviction was expunged (zahladenie odsúdenia) — expungement itself following only once the sentence has been served and a further statutory period has run, and for some sentences never, so that an old conviction can bar an applicant far longer than five years and sometimes permanently; a conditionally discontinued prosecution for such an offence disqualifies until five years after the probation period ends; and a prosecution discontinued by approved settlement until five years after that decision becomes final. The compliance condition is not waived for the ancestry route, but under § 8(3)(i) an applicant abroad replaces the documents that cannot concern them with a reasoned statutory declaration. Applicants under § 7(2)(b) and (i) and under § 7(4)–(8) are expressly exempt from the Slovak language and country-knowledge examination, as are applicants under 14, anyone who is or ever was a Czech citizen, holders of a valid "Slovak living abroad" certificate, applicants over 65, and anyone who passed a Slovak-language school-leaving examination, a state language examination in Slovak or a university state examination in a Slovak-taught programme within the preceding ten years (§ 7(1)(h)). Only § 7(6) and § 7(7) are framed as entitlements; every other route, § 7(8) included, is discretionary, and the Ministry of Interior states that there is no legal entitlement to a grant even when all statutory conditions are met. A separate facilitated route exists for holders of the certificate of "Slovak living abroad" (osvedčenie Slováka žijúceho v zahraničí under Act No. 474/2005 Coll., issued by the Office for Slovaks Living Abroad on proof of Slovak ethnic origin): they may naturalise after three years' continuous residence in Slovakia instead of eight (§ 7(3)(a)), or, without any residence period, where they hold a Slovak residence permit and have significantly contributed to the community of Slovaks abroad from which they come (§ 7(3)(b), decided by the Minister after an opinion of the Office). Since the 2022 and 2026 reforms, most people of Slovak descent qualify more simply under § 7(8).

Under § 7(8) the anchor ancestor may be at most three generations back: a parent, grandparent (prarodič) or great-grandparent (praprarodič). More distant ancestors do not qualify for this route. Two things must be proven about the ancestor: that he/she was born on the territory of the present-day Slovak Republic, and that he/she held Czechoslovak citizenship at some point during his/her lifetime (Czechoslovak citizenship existed from 1918 to 1992). An ancestor born in today's Slovakia before 1918 qualifies if he/she later became a Czechoslovak citizen. The decisive question for an emigrant ancestor is not the date of departure but whether the initial-citizenry rules of 1920 caught him/her — that is, whether he/she still held the right of domicile in a municipality that fell to Czechoslovakia, acquired by 1 January 1910 and held continuously since. Someone who had already lost Hungarian citizenship through ten years' absence before 1918 never became a Czechoslovak citizen at all, whereas someone who was still in the country in 1918–1920 and emigrated in, say, 1921 did. An ancestor born elsewhere (for example in today's Ukraine or the Czech Republic) does not qualify even if he/she held Czechoslovak citizenship, and conversely birth in Slovakia without ever holding Czechoslovak citizenship is insufficient.

No unbroken chain of citizenship transmission is required. It does not matter that the ancestor later lost Czechoslovak citizenship (for instance through naturalisation in the United States), nor that the intermediate generations never held Slovak or Czechoslovak citizenship. The intermediate parent or grandparent does not need to apply first or at all. Parents and their children aged 14 or over must each file a separate application; children under 14 named in a parent's application acquire citizenship with the parent (§ 8(11)). Where a child is named in one parent's application and the other parent has not filed the same application, the other parent's written consent with an officially certified signature is required, replaceable only by a final court decision and dispensed with only where that parent has been deprived of parental rights or those rights or his/her legal capacity are restricted (§ 16a(2)); the questionnaire of an applicant under 18 must also be signed by the parents (§ 8(4)). Relatives are reported to be able to lodge their applications at the same appointment, but there is no joint application for adults: each files separately, pays separately and is assessed individually. The only route-specific condition tied to the applicant personally is that he/she has never been a Slovak citizen — the general conditions of § 7(1) still apply, and persons who were once Slovak citizens must use the re-acquisition provisions instead.

By contrast, a claim to be recognised as an existing citizen (via the citizenship certificate) has no generational limit but does require an unbroken chain: each generation must actually have acquired citizenship at birth under the law then in force, and no loss event may have interrupted the line before the next generation's birth. For anyone born before 1 January 1993 the chain must also have been Slovak, not merely Czechoslovak: it had to convert into citizenship of the Slovak Socialist Republic at the 1 January 1969 cut-off under §§ 2–5 of Act No. 206/1968, and still be held on 31 December 1992 (§ 2 of Act No. 40/1993). A family line that was Czechoslovak throughout but attached to the Czech lands produced Czech citizens, and this is the most common reason a recognition claim fails. In practice the recognition route works for children and often grandchildren of emigrants who left after the Second World War without being released from or deprived of citizenship, while the § 7(8) grant route is the realistic path where the chain was broken.

Whether an ancestor was a Czechoslovak citizen is determined by a succession of laws. Before 1918, today's Slovakia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, where Hungarian Act L of 1879 applied: under § 3 citizenship passed to the legitimate children of a Hungarian citizen and to the illegitimate children of a Hungarian citizen mother, in both cases even where the birth was abroad, and under § 5 a foreign woman acquired Hungarian citizenship by marrying a Hungarian citizen. After the creation of Czechoslovakia on 28 October 1918, the initial body of citizens was defined by Constitutional Act No. 236/1920 Coll. of 9 April 1920: with effect from 28 October 1918, § 1(1) conferred Czechoslovak citizenship on persons who had acquired the right of domicile (domovské právo) by 1 January 1910 at the latest, and held it continuously since, in a municipality of the former Austro-Hungarian territory now belonging to Czechoslovakia; those who acquired domicile only after that date had to apply within a preclusive period set by the government (§ 9). By its § 20 the Act took effect, as regards the states formed from Austria-Hungary, on the entry into force of the peace treaty with Austria signed at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 10 September 1919 — officially notified as 16 July 1920; the Treaty of Trianon (signed 4 June 1920, in force 26 July 1921) settled the position of the former Hungarian lands afterwards. Act L of 1879 otherwise remained in force in Slovakia for acquisition and loss until 1 October 1949, so the interwar rules in Slovakia remained patrilineal for children born in wedlock.

During the Second World War the Slovak State (1939–1945) had its own citizenship legislation; after the war Czechoslovak citizenship was treated as continuous. Presidential Decree No. 33/1945 Coll., however, deprived Czechoslovak citizens of German and Hungarian ethnicity of citizenship — in Slovakia this affected chiefly the Hungarian minority. Act No. 245/1948 Coll. (in force 17 November 1948) did not reverse that loss retroactively: persons of Hungarian nationality who had been Czechoslovak citizens on 1 November 1938, were resident in Czechoslovakia and were not nationals of a foreign state acquired Czechoslovak citizenship on the date the Act took effect, but only if they swore an oath of allegiance within 90 days, and the Act excluded persons listed by the Ministry of the Interior as having gravely offended against the Republic and persons designated for the Czechoslovak–Hungarian population exchange. A residual group — resident Hungarians who had lost citizenship under Decree No. 33/1945 and had not regained it — was picked up only by Article III of Act No. 72/1958 Coll. (in force 11 November 1958), which made them Czechoslovak citizens by operation of law.

Act No. 194/1949 Coll. on Czechoslovak citizenship (effective 1 October 1949) unified the law and equalised the sexes for births in the country: a child born on Czechoslovak territory to a citizen father or mother was a citizen. A child born abroad acquired citizenship automatically only if both parents were citizens; where only one parent was a citizen and the other a foreigner, the child acquired citizenship only if the regional (from 1958 district) national committee consented on the citizen parent's application, filed within one year of the birth — a rule that can break chains for children born abroad to mixed couples between 1949 and 1968. With the federalisation of Czechoslovakia, Slovak National Council Act No. 206/1968 Coll. created citizenship of the Slovak Socialist Republic from 1 January 1969: existing Czechoslovak citizens born on Slovak territory became Slovak citizens, those born abroad by reference to their (or their parents') permanent or last permanent residence, with a declaration option between the two republics until 31 December 1969. Transmission from 1969 was automatic where both parents were Slovak citizens (§ 8(1)) and, regardless of birthplace and of which parent held it, where one parent was a foreigner and the other a Slovak citizen (§ 8(4)). It was not automatic across the internal federal border: where the other parent was a citizen of the Czech Socialist Republic, § 8(2) gave the child Slovak citizenship if it was born on Slovak territory, but a child of such parents born abroad acquired Slovak citizenship only if the mother was the Slovak citizen, subject to a parental declaration for Czech citizenship within six months of the birth. On the dissolution of the federation, Act No. 40/1993 Coll. (effective 15 February 1993) provided that everyone who was a citizen of the Slovak Republic under Act No. 206/1968 on 31 December 1992 is a Slovak citizen (§ 2); any other Czechoslovak citizen could opt for Slovak citizenship by declaration until 31 December 1993 (§ 3). Since 15 February 1993 a child acquires Slovak citizenship at birth if at least one parent is a Slovak citizen, wherever born, with no registration deadline (§ 5(1)(a)).

Historical loss events determine whether an ancestor was still a citizen and whether an ex lege chain survives. In Slovakia before 1949, Hungarian Act L of 1879 caused loss through ten years' uninterrupted absence from the territory of the Hungarian crown without a government commission (§ 31), and that loss extended to the absent man's cohabiting wife and his minor children under paternal power (§ 32). The absence clock was, however, interrupted by notifying the competent authority of the wish to retain citizenship, by obtaining a new passport, by obtaining a residence certificate from an Austro-Hungarian consulate, or by entry in a consular register, so the rule bit less often than emigrant families assume. The same Act allowed loss to be declared for unauthorised service to another state (§ 30), imposed loss where a child was legitimated by a foreign natural father (§ 33), and made a woman lose Hungarian citizenship on marrying a non-Hungarian (§ 34). The marriage ground ceased to apply in Slovakia on 24 June 1947, when Act No. 102/1947 Coll. took effect and its § 6 repealed the existing marriage rules; under § 2 of that Act a Czechoslovak woman marrying a foreigner lost citizenship only if she acquired her husband's nationality by the marriage, and not even then if the regional national committee, on her application filed before the marriage or within three months after it, declared that she retained it. Under the Naturalisation Convention of 16 July 1928 between Czechoslovakia and the United States (No. 169/1929 Coll., given the force of law by Act No. 60/1930 Coll.), Czechoslovak citizens automatically lost citizenship on voluntarily naturalising in the United States; the convention ceased to be in force between the Slovak Republic and the United States on 7 July 1997. Its reach was narrower than the bare rule suggests: on the reported reading of its own definition it covered naturalisation granted to a person over 21 on their own application while permanently resident in the United States, and a person under 21 only through a parent's naturalisation coupled with permanent residence there, and it did not apply to naturalisation obtained while the person's country of origin was at war.

Under Act No. 194/1949 Coll., citizenship was lost by a woman's marriage to a foreigner in defined cases (§ 5, repealed by Act No. 72/1958 Coll. with effect from 11 November 1958), by release on request (§ 6), and by deprivation (§ 7) — a tool used against emigrants and defectors, extended in 1958 to persons staying abroad uninterruptedly for five years without a valid Czechoslovak document authorising residence abroad. Act No. 88/1990 Coll. (in force 29 March 1990) annulled deprivation decisions from the date of their issue, but only those issued under the three provisions it named: § 7 of Act No. 194/1949 Coll. (itself in force only from 1 October 1949), § 15 of Slovak National Council Act No. 206/1968 Coll. and § 14a of Czech National Council Act No. 39/1969 Coll. It treated the persons concerned as released from the state bond as of 29 March 1990. It did not reverse the denaturalisations under Presidential Decree No. 33/1945 Coll., nor any other loss occurring before 1 October 1949 — a trap for chains running through Hungarian-minority ancestors in southern Slovakia. Loss by mere foreign naturalisation, outside the United States convention and similar bilateral treaties, was not a general feature of the 1949 and 1968 acts, and marriage has had no effect on citizenship since 1958 at the latest.

Current law recognises two ways of losing citizenship (§ 9(1)): release from the state bond on one's own request, available only to a person who proves another citizenship or a promise of one (§ 9(2)) and barred where a prosecution or unserved sentence is outstanding or where arrears are recorded to the tax or customs office, a municipality, social insurance or a health insurer (§ 9(3)); and — since Act No. 250/2010 Coll., effective 17 July 2010 — automatic loss on the day the citizen voluntarily acquires a foreign citizenship through an express act of will, meaning an application, declaration or other act directed at acquiring it (§ 9(16)). Loss does not occur where the foreign citizenship is a spouse's citizenship acquired during the marriage, or was acquired by birth or adoption, or by a minor (§ 9(17)); since 1 April 2022 it also does not occur where the person had authorised, registered or otherwise recorded residence in that state for at least five years at the time of acquisition (§ 9(18)). In the excepted cases the citizen must notify the district office in the regional capital in writing within 90 days, with hard-copy proof; breach of the notification duty is an administrative offence fined up to 330 € (§ 9b). For the § 7(8) ancestry route, interruption of transmission in the family line is irrelevant — only the ancestor's one-time Czechoslovak citizenship and Slovak birthplace count.

Victims of the communist regime were addressed by Act No. 88/1990 Coll.: those whose deprivation decisions were annulled could declare by 31 December 1993 that they wished to remain Czechoslovak citizens, and persons released from citizenship between 1 October 1949 and 31 December 1989 could ask for it back within the same window. Both windows have closed, but because the Act deemed the deprived to be persons released from the state bond, they and their position now fall under § 7(5) of Act No. 40/1993. What remains permanently available is facilitated naturalisation with no residence-duration requirement in two situations. Section 7(4) covers a former Czechoslovak citizen whose citizenship simply lapsed, and one who lost it through long absence (§§ 31–32 of Act L of 1879), through marriage (§ 34 of Act L of 1879, § 2 of Act No. 102/1947, § 5 of Act No. 194/1949), through acquiring Czech republic-level citizenship (§ 13(1) of Act No. 206/1968), or under international treaties. Section 7(5) covers persons released from the state bond under § 6 of Act No. 194/1949 or § 14(1) of Act No. 206/1968. Both are discretionary. People who lost Slovak citizenship under the 2010 rule between 17 July 2010 and 31 March 2022 have the entitlement in § 7(7), but only on the conditions attached to it — at least five years' authorised, registered or otherwise recorded residence in the state whose citizenship they took, proven by hard-copy documents; those who cannot prove the five years fall back on discretionary routes. They are exempt from the naturalisation fee, as are all foreigners who lost Slovak citizenship after 1 January 1993.

Two frequently conflated Czech-related rules should be kept apart. The reduced fee of 30 € for Czech citizens applies only to those born after 1 January 1993 (items 20(d) and 247(d) of the fee schedule), whereas the exemption from the Slovak language and knowledge test applies to anyone who is or ever was a Czech citizen, whenever born (§ 7(1)(h) point 2). The fee schedule also gives the 30 € rate to "re-optants under international law", a term that neither the schedule nor Act No. 40/1993 defines. The ethnic-origin route via the "Slovak living abroad" certificate (Act No. 474/2005 Coll.) remains available and additionally gives easier access to residence, but for citizenship it still requires three years' residence in Slovakia in the ordinary case, so since 2022 it has been largely superseded by § 7(8) for those with a qualifying ancestor. Children born abroad to a Slovak parent are citizens from birth with no registration deadline; the birth must merely be entered in the special registry (osobitná matrika) before Slovak documents are issued.

Slovakia's position is asymmetric. Naturalisation in Slovakia has never required renunciation of the previous citizenship under Act No. 40/1993 — in the original 1993 wording the absence of another citizenship counted only in the applicant's favour, never as a condition. Applicants by descent under § 7(8), like all other naturalisation applicants, therefore keep their existing nationality as far as Slovak law is concerned, and the ancestry route produces dual citizens as a matter of course. In the other direction, a Slovak citizen who voluntarily acquires a foreign citizenship loses Slovak citizenship by operation of law (§ 9(16), in force since 17 July 2010) — a rule adopted in reaction to Hungary's 2010 simplified-naturalisation law.

The exceptions have widened over time: no loss occurs on acquiring a spouse's citizenship during marriage, on acquisition by birth or adoption, where the acquirer is a minor, or — since 1 April 2022 — where the person had at least five years' recorded residence in the state whose citizenship is acquired (§ 9(17)–(18)). A newly naturalised Slovak citizen should therefore note that a later voluntary acquisition of some further citizenship could still cost the Slovak one unless an exception applies. There is no Czech carve-out: dual Czech and Slovak citizenship arising from the 1993 dissolution persists undisturbed, but a Slovak citizen who takes Czech citizenship today loses Slovak citizenship under § 9(16) like anyone else unless one of the § 9(17)–(18) exceptions applies — which for Slovaks settled in Czechia it usually will, since they will normally have had five years' registered residence there and will keep both. The fee schedule nonetheless prices the expected exit at a reduced 30 € for release from the state bond "in connection with the grant of Czech citizenship" (items 21(c) and 246(c)). Czech documents are accepted in Slovak proceedings without translation and without further authentication.

An applicant under § 7(8) submits the documents listed in § 8(3): a detailed structured CV, a valid identity document showing the applicant's current face, a birth certificate, proof of civil status (marriage certificate, final divorce decree or spouse's death certificate, as applicable), criminal-record extracts not older than six months from every state of present or past citizenship and from every state in which the applicant held an authorised residence in the last 15 years, the documents evidencing compliance with the tax, insurance and residence obligations of § 7(1)(i) — with those that cannot concern the applicant replaced by a reasoned statutory declaration — and, the core of the case, a document proving that the parent, grandparent or great-grandparent was a Czechoslovak citizen born on the territory of the Slovak Republic (§ 8(3)(k), inserted by Act No. 128/2026 Coll.). The ministry additionally requires the line of descent itself to be documented: the birth certificates, and where surnames changed the marriage certificates, of every generation between the applicant and the ancestor — for a great-grandparent claim three or four further civil-status records, and usually the slowest part of the file to assemble. Proof of residence in Slovakia is required only where residence has to be proven, which it does not on this route (§ 8(3)(e) as amended). The applicant also completes the statutory questionnaire at Annex 1 (§ 8(4)). Beyond this list the ministry may call for further documents where they are needed for the decision — a decision on change of name is the common example — and the proceedings are suspended while the deadline for producing them runs (§ 8a(1)).

The ancestor's Slovak birth is proven by a birth or baptismal certificate obtainable from the Slovak registry offices or state archives. Neither the Act nor the ministry prescribes a list of documents for the ancestor's Czechoslovak citizenship; in reported practice it is proven by an old Czechoslovak passport, a certificate of domicile (domovský list), a citizenship certificate, or the 1921, 1930 and 1940 census sheets held by the Slovak archives, while a foreign naturalisation certificate that merely records "nationality" is often not accepted on its own. An ancestor's birth certificate by itself never proves citizenship. A confirmation of a person's citizenship as of a given date (potvrdenie o štátnom občianstve) can also be requested from the district office in the regional capital by anyone showing a legal reason (§ 9a(12)). Foreign public documents must bear an apostille or superlegalisation unless a bilateral treaty dispenses with it, and must be accompanied by a certified translation into Slovak; EU multilingual standard forms are accepted where applicable, and Czech documents need neither. Documents are submitted as originals or certified copies; an original produced at the counter is copied and returned once the data in it have been verified (§ 16a(3)).

Citizenship is granted by the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic. The application is filed in person, either at a district office in the regional capital (okresný úrad v sídle kraja; for applicants who have never resided in Slovakia, the Bratislava District Office is competent under § 16) or at a Slovak diplomatic mission or consular office (§ 8(1)); representation under a power of attorney is otherwise permitted but is excluded both at filing and at collection of the deed of grant (§ 15(3)). The applicant fills in the questionnaire at the receiving office, which verifies identity and, where the test applies, Slovak language; applicants under § 7(4)–(8), including the ancestry route, take no language or country-knowledge test. The district office in the regional capital then obtains police and municipal opinions and forwards the file to the ministry (§ 8(9)); embassies and consulates only receive the application. The ministry obtains a criminal-record extract from the Prosecutor General's Office, consults the Police Corps and, where needed, the Slovak Information Service, and must decide within 24 months of receiving the application (§ 8a(7)); the clock stops while opinions of other state authorities are outstanding and the proceedings are interrupted while requested supplementary documents are outstanding. If the application is refused, a new application may be filed after two years (§ 8a(13)). While the application is pending the applicant must notify the ministry or the district office without delay of every change in personal data, civil status and in the facts stated in the questionnaire and the documents filed (§ 18); failure to do so is an administrative offence carrying a fine of up to 330 € (§ 9b).

Citizenship is acquired only on taking the citizen's oath, which is the condition of acquisition, and personally receiving the deed of grant (listina o udelení štátneho občianstva); the oath is sworn before the head of the district office, the ambassador or consul, or a person authorised by them (§ 8a(10), (12)). Children under 14 and persons whose health prevents it do not take the oath. If the deed is not collected within six months of a written summons without serious reason, the ministry stops the proceedings (§ 8a(11)). Since 15 July 2026 the deed itself proves citizenship for 90 days from receipt (§ 9a(1)(e)), so the new citizen can immediately have foreign birth and marriage records entered in the special registry (osobitná matrika), register residence, and then apply for an identity card and passport.

Persons who are already citizens by descent instead apply for the citizenship certificate at any district office in a regional capital or at an embassy or consulate; since 15 July 2026 an application at a mission may be filed not only in person but also electronically or by post (§ 9a(2)), the in-person rule surviving only for the grant application and for release from the state bond (§ 15(3)). A mission sends an application from abroad to the district office electronically and receives the issued document back the same way; that document is valid for six months and is not handed to the applicant, and a paper certificate on the ministry's form is issued only if the applicant expressly asks for it when filing (§ 9a(2), (13)). The certificate is otherwise issued within about 30 days and is valid for six months from issue (§ 9a(6)); where the person is not in the central citizenship register or doubts exist, the district office must first obtain the ministry's consent, which lengthens the process (§ 9a(5)).

Timing for the § 7(8) ancestry grant is governed by the 24-month statutory ceiling, and that ceiling does not run while the opinions of other state authorities are outstanding, so cases can exceed it. Practitioners report that decisions have in practice come inside that ceiling, but no official statistics on decision times are published, and the residence-free version of the route opened only on 15 July 2026, so there is as yet no experience of how long it takes or of the volumes it will attract. To this must be added the time for gathering ancestral records, the oath appointment and, afterwards, the special-registry entry — made within three months of the request, extendable by up to three further months in justified cases — and passport issuance. The citizenship certificate for existing citizens normally takes about 30 days once the file is complete, longer where the register must be reconstructed from archival evidence.

Governmental fees only; Slovakia's currency is the euro, so no conversion is needed, although a consulate collects in euro or in the currency of its host state, converted at the reference rate of the European Central Bank or the National Bank of Slovakia fixed on the day before the first day of the month in which the fee is collected and rounded up to the whole unit of the foreign currency (§ 7(6) of Act No. 145/1995 Coll.). Under items 20 and 247 of the fee schedule to that Act, the grant of citizenship to a person with a Czechoslovak-citizen parent, grandparent or great-grandparent costs 30 €, whether filed in Slovakia or at a consulate. The same 30 € applies to former Slovak or Czechoslovak citizens, re-optants, and Czech citizens born after 1 January 1993. By comparison, ordinary naturalisation costs 1 000 € for an adult, 140 € for a child under 15 and 210 € (220 € at a consulate) for a child aged 15–18, and naturalisation of a "Slovak living abroad" certificate holder costs 560 € (600 € at a consulate); these rates have applied since 1 April 2024. The fee is collected only after a positive decision.

Several groups pay nothing at all under the exemption to items 20 and 247: asylees, resettlers from the Chernobyl area of Ukraine, foreigners over 65, invalidity pensioners, persons with severe disability, and foreigners who lost Slovak citizenship after 1 January 1993. An ancestry applicant over 65 therefore pays no fee rather than 30 €. Ancillary official costs: citizenship certificate 15 € and confirmation of citizenship 15 € (items 22 and 245), although the ministry's own consular fee sheet still prints 14 € for the consular versions of both; entry of a foreign birth in the special registry 15 € domestically and 35 € at a consulate (items 17 and 251); apostille 10 € domestically and 30 € at a consulate (items 3 and 254); passport 50 € for a person over 16, 20 € for a child aged 6–16 and 12 € under 6 in Slovakia, and 60 €, 25 € and 15 € respectively at a consulate, with an emergency travel document at a consulate 50 € (items 23 and 243). Release from the state bond costs 1 000 € for an adult, reduced to 30 € where it accompanies the grant of Czech citizenship, and is free for persons over 65 and invalidity pensioners.

This page is not updated regularly, and it may not reflect the current position. It is a general account of Slovak citizenship law: statutes are amended, time limits expire, and the practice of the competent authorities moves without the legislation moving with it. Nothing here is legal advice, and nothing here is an assessment of your own family’s position.

Whether there is a claim in your case turns on names, dates and documents that no general page can take into account. The questionnaire is where we ask about them, and a lawyer in our citizenship team reads the answers.