Bosnian citizenship by descent for U.S. citizens

Author: Azur Prnjavorac, attorney at law | Updated: 17 September 2026

In short. If one of your parents was a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina when you were born, you are in most cases already a Bosnian citizen and only need to be entered in the registers; this is citizenship by descent, and it is how almost all of our clients in the United States obtain their Bosnian passport. Both countries allow dual citizenship: Bosnia and Herzegovina does not withdraw its citizenship from a person who holds another, and U.S. law does not require an American who acquires a second citizenship to give up the first, so you keep your U.S. citizenship and passport. There is no language test, no residence requirement and no military service. The procedure is conducted in Bosnia under a power of attorney, without your travelling; you sign the power of attorney at the Embassy in Washington, the Consulate General in Chicago or before a notary public in your state, and we obtain the Bosnian documents, file the application and see it through to the certificate of citizenship. Registration usually takes a few weeks to a few months. Below we explain exactly who qualifies, including the 23-year rule that catches many applicants, which U.S. documents you need and how they are apostilled, where to file, what it costs in dollars and how you pay.

Who qualifies: parent, grandparent, marriage

Bosnian citizenship by descent depends on one question: was at least one of your parents a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the moment of your birth. Which law answers it depends on your date of birth. For persons born before 1 January 1998 the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina applies; for persons born on or after that date the current Law on Citizenship of BiH. In both laws a person who acquires citizenship by descent is a citizen from birth, not from the day of registration, which is why age itself is never an obstacle. The typical situations of our American clients are these.

You were born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and emigrated to the United States, as a child or an adult, and later became a U.S. citizen. You are still a Bosnian citizen. Bosnia and Herzegovina does not provide for the automatic loss of its citizenship upon naturalisation abroad, and the United States did not ask you to renounce it; Bosnian citizenship ends only by a formal renunciation or release that you would have applied for yourself. You do not need any citizenship procedure, only documents: a certificate of citizenship from the register where you are entered, a personal identification number (JMBG) if you never had one, and a new passport. We obtain the certificate and the extracts under a power of attorney; the passport you collect at the Embassy or the Consulate.

Both of your parents were citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina when you were born, wherever you were born, including the United States. This is the case of most children of the families who arrived in the 1990s. Under Article 4 of the old law and Article 6 point a) of the current law you are a citizen from birth and there is no deadline: you can be registered at 5, at 25 or at 50. It does not matter that your parents later became U.S. citizens, because they did not lose Bosnian citizenship by doing so; what matters is their citizenship on the day of your birth. The only exception is a parent who formally renounced Bosnian citizenship before you were born, which is rare among emigrants to the United States because U.S. law never required it.

One parent from Bosnia, the other from another republic of the former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, North Macedonia or Kosovo), and you were born abroad before 1 January 1998. Article 4 point 4 of the old law makes you a citizen from birth, with no deadline. This provision does not exist in the current law, so it helps only those born before 1998.

One parent from Bosnia, the other a U.S. citizen or a citizen of any other country, and you were born abroad. Here the law sets a deadline: the application for registration must be filed with the competent authority in Bosnia or at a BiH consulate before you turn 23 (Article 5 of the old law, Article 6 point d) of the current law). Once filed in time, the citizenship exists from birth. An applicant older than 23 in this situation does not qualify by descent; the remaining routes are naturalisation, which for a U.S. citizen means giving up U.S. citizenship, or, if your Bosnian parent is still alive and you plan to live in Bosnia, facilitated grounds that we assess case by case. If you have a child under 23 in the same position, the child can still be registered; the same applies to your own children as soon as you are registered.

Your grandparent was born in Bosnia, but your parent was never registered. The law knows no grandparent route: citizenship passes from parent to child, one generation at a time. In practice this is solved in two steps. First your parent is registered on the basis of your grandparent, under the same rules as above; because citizenship by descent exists from birth, the registration confirms that your parent was a Bosnian citizen on the day you were born. Then you are registered on the basis of your parent. If your parent has died, the registration can still be established from the records, and we regularly do this. If the chain is broken, for example because your grandparent left Yugoslavia before 1945 and was never a citizen of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, descent is not available and we tell you so before you spend money on documents.

Marriage to a Bosnian citizen is a ground for facilitated naturalisation (Article 10 of the Law on Citizenship of BiH), not for citizenship by descent: the marriage must have lasted at least five years, you need approved permanent residence in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and, because there is no bilateral dual citizenship treaty between Bosnia and the United States, you must renounce U.S. citizenship. For almost all American spouses that makes the route theoretical; we explain it here so that you do not pay for a procedure that leads nowhere. Re-acquisition (Article 14) concerns people whose Bosnian citizenship ended by renunciation or release, typically to obtain German or Austrian citizenship; it requires a year of approved temporary residence in Bosnia and renunciation of the citizenship acquired in the meantime. Details of all grounds, with the statutory text, are on the page obtaining citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Does Bosnia allow dual citizenship? Yes, and so does the United States

On the Bosnian side. The Constitution of BiH (Article I/7) and the Law on Citizenship link dual citizenship to bilateral treaties, but the law contains no rule that a Bosnian citizen loses citizenship by acquiring another, and citizenship by descent has no renunciation requirement at all. The renunciation requirement applies only to naturalisation. Decisions on registration by descent issued for our clients regularly state that the person holds the citizenship of the United States and of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia has dual citizenship treaties with Croatia, Serbia and Sweden; with the United States there is none, which matters only for naturalisation, not for descent. A dual citizen votes in Bosnia only if Bosnia is his country of residence, and there is no compulsory military service in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Our page on dual citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina covers the treaties and the position of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

On the American side. U.S. law does not prohibit dual nationality. A U.S. citizen loses citizenship only by performing an expatriating act with the intention of giving up U.S. citizenship (8 U.S.C. 1481), and the Department of State presumes that a person who acquires a foreign citizenship, including by descent or by registration, intends to keep U.S. citizenship. Registering your Bosnian citizenship therefore has no effect on your U.S. status. Two practical points: U.S. citizens must enter and leave the United States on their U.S. passport, and the U.S. tax obligation of citizens does not change; acquiring Bosnian citizenship by itself creates no tax residence in Bosnia, which depends on where you actually live. Bosnia and the United States have no income tax treaty; if you plan to live or invest in Bosnia, we look at that separately.

Which U.S. documents you need and how they are certified

For registration by descent the authority in Bosnia needs to see three things: who you are, that you are the child of a Bosnian citizen, and that you are not already entered in the registers. The Bosnian side of the file, that is your parent's certificate of citizenship and birth extract, the certificate that you are not registered, and any records from the former Yugoslav registers, we obtain in Bosnia under the power of attorney; you do not have to search for them. From the United States you provide the following.

Your birth certificate, a certified copy issued by the vital records office of the state where you were born, in the long form that shows both parents' names. It must carry an apostille from the Secretary of State of the same state; a county-issued or hospital certificate cannot be apostilled, and some states apostille only copies issued within the last few years, so order a fresh copy. New York City certificates need a Letter of Exemplification from the City before the New York Department of State will apostille them. The apostille is obtained by mail or in person; fees are between about 2 and 25 dollars per document depending on the state, and processing by mail takes one to four weeks.

Proof of your identity and citizenship: a copy of your U.S. passport certified by a notary public and apostilled by the Secretary of State of the notary's state; for a person naturalised in the United States the passport also serves as proof of U.S. citizenship, so the certificate of naturalisation is not needed. Proof of name changes: a marriage certificate or court order on change of name, again certified and apostilled, because the Bosnian register will record you under the name on your birth certificate unless the change is documented. If you married or divorced in the United States and the marriage is to be recorded in Bosnia, the foreign judgment or certificate needs recognition or registration in Bosnia, which we handle in the same file.

FBI background check (Identity History Summary) with an apostille from the U.S. Department of State is required only for naturalisation and facilitated naturalisation, not for citizenship by descent. If it is needed, we tell you at the outset; the federal apostille is issued by the Office of Authentications in Washington for a fee of 20 dollars and takes several weeks by mail.

Power of attorney, drafted by us in Bosnian with an English translation beside it, signed before a consular officer of BiH (valid immediately) or before a notary public and apostilled. Everything about its content and form is on the page power of attorney for a lawyer in Bosnia from abroad. Translations: every U.S. document, including the apostille, is translated by a permanent court interpreter appointed in Bosnia and Herzegovina; translations by U.S. certified translators are not accepted by the registry offices. We arrange the translations after receiving the originals, so you should not pay for translations in the United States.

Where the application is filed: Washington, Chicago or directly in Bosnia

There are three ways to file. The Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Washington handles the eastern and southern states and the Consulate General in Chicago the Midwest and the West; both accept applications for registration of citizenship and forward them to the competent registry office in Bosnia, which then decides. Addresses, hours and the division of states are on the page Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the USA. The third way, which most of our clients choose, is to file directly with the competent authority in Bosnia through an attorney: the registry office of the municipality where your parent is entered in the register of citizens (in the Federation of BiH), the Ministry of the Interior (in the Republika Srpska) or the Department for the Public Register (in Brčko District). Filing directly is usually faster, because there is no forwarding through diplomatic channels, and because the attorney answers the authority's requests for supplements within days instead of months.

How long it takes, what it costs in dollars and how you pay

Time. Subsequent registration by descent usually takes from a few weeks to a few months from the day the complete application is filed, depending on the authority and on whether records from the former Yugoslav registers have to be located. Two-generation cases (parent first, then you) take correspondingly longer, but both applications can be prepared together. After registration you receive the certificate of citizenship and, if you never had one, a personal identification number; the passport is then applied for at the Embassy or the Consulate in person, because fingerprints are taken, and is delivered by mail in a few weeks.

Cost in the United States. Certified copy of a birth certificate 10 to 35 dollars depending on the state; apostille 2 to 25 dollars per document; notary public 5 to 15 dollars per signature. Consular fees of Bosnia and Herzegovina under the fee schedule of the Embassy in Washington of February 2026: certification of a signature on a power of attorney 18 dollars, registration of a birth 12 dollars, obtaining an extract or certificate through the mission 55 dollars, passport 140 dollars for adults, 110 dollars for children aged 3 to 18 and 93 dollars under 3, delivery included; an application for naturalisation filed through the mission costs 238 dollars, which does not apply to descent.

Cost in Bosnia. Administrative fees for registration by descent are low, in our cases 10 to 15 KM (about 6 to 9 dollars). Court interpreter translations are charged per page. The attorney's fee is agreed in writing before we start, as a lump sum for the whole registration including obtaining the Bosnian documents, so that the amount does not change with the number of requests from the authority; the fee is calculated from the Attorney Tariff of the Federation of BiH and quoted to you in U.S. dollars and euros. Payment is by international bank transfer in U.S. dollars or euros to the office account on the basis of an invoice, in two instalments as a rule: one on engagement and one on delivery of the certificate. We do not ask for cash and we issue a receipt for every payment.

From your first e-mail to the passport: six steps

1. Eligibility check. You send us, by e-mail, the basic facts: your date and place of birth, your parents' names, dates and places of birth and their citizenship when you were born, and copies of any Bosnian or Yugoslav documents the family has kept. We tell you in writing whether you qualify, under which article, and what it will cost.
2. Power of attorney. We send the draft; you sign it at the Embassy, the Consulate or before a notary public with an apostille and mail us the original.
3. Documents. In Bosnia we obtain your parent's certificate of citizenship and birth extract and the certificate that you are not registered; in the United States you order the certified birth certificate and the other documents listed above and have them apostilled. We check scans before you pay for apostilles.
4. Filing. We have the U.S. documents translated by a court interpreter and file the application with the competent registry office, or, if you prefer, with the Embassy or the Consulate.
5. Decision and registration. We answer any request for supplements, collect the decision and obtain the certificate of citizenship and the personal identification number, and send you the originals by courier.
6. Passport. With the certificate you apply for the Bosnian passport at the Embassy or the Consulate General; we prepare the application and the list of what to bring. Your children can be registered in the same way on the basis of your registration.

Related matters for clients in the United States

Our main practice areas for clients abroad

Most matters from abroad fall within a few practice areas in which the office has worked since 1993. Each has its own page with the procedure, timelines and costs:

Legislation and sources this page is based on

This page was written by an attorney on the basis of the legislation in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its entities. Legal sources verified on 17 September 2026. Statutory texts are in Bosnian.