Dual Citizenship of the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic

Acquiring Slovak citizenship does not automatically (by law) result in the loss of Czech citizenship. This has been confirmed in writing by the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, which stated in an email dated January 31, 2019, that “according to Czech legislation, Czech citizenship can only be lost in one way, namely by declaration of a Czech citizen who permanently resides abroad.”

The procedure for renouncing Czech citizenship is described here.

Both Slovak and Czech legal systems allow dual citizenship. This means that a citizen of Slovakia can also hold Czech citizenship and vice versa. This information has also been confirmed in writing by the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Bratislava, which stated in its report: “The legislation of the Czech Republic allows/does not exclude dual citizenship, thus enabling Czech citizens to acquire and hold Slovak citizenship in addition to Czech citizenship.”

During the existence of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (until 31 December 1992), the legal status of citizenship was primarily governed by Act No. 206/1968 Coll. on the Acquisition and Loss of Citizenship of the Slovak Socialist Republic and Act No. 39/1968 Coll. on the Acquisition and Loss of Citizenship of the Czech Socialist Republic.

 

These laws contained identical provisions in Section 8, which regulated the acquisition of the “national” component of citizenship as follows:

 

Section 8(1) of Act No. 39/1968 Coll. (SR):

“A child whose parents are citizens of the Slovak Socialist Republic acquires the citizenship of the parents by birth.”

 

Section 8(2) of Act No. 39/1968 Coll.:

 

“A child whose one parent is a citizen of the Slovak Socialist Republic and the other a citizen of the Czech Socialist Republic acquires the citizenship of the Slovak Socialist Republic by birth if born on its territory. A child of these parents who is born abroad acquires the citizenship of the Slovak Socialist Republic if its mother is a citizen of the Slovak Socialist Republic. The parents may agree, by a declaration made within 6 months after the birth of the child, on the citizenship of the Czech Socialist Republic for the child.”

 

A corresponding provision existed in Act No. 39/1969 Coll. for citizenship of the Czech Socialist Republic.

 

It follows that a child born during the existence of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic acquired only one citizenship – that of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic – and within it had a national component of citizenship, either Czech or Slovak, according to the above-mentioned rules.

 

Thus, prior to 1 January 1993, a child could not acquire both Czech and Slovak citizenship simultaneously, but only one – pursuant to Acts No. 39/1968 Coll. or 206/1968 Coll., depending on the citizenship of the parents and the place of birth.

 

Following the dissolution of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic on 1 January 1993, two independent states were established – the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic – each of which adopted its own citizenship legislation. In the case of children born after this date, the acquisition of citizenship was governed exclusively by the legal system of the respective successor state, with each country applying the principle of ius sanguinis – that is, the acquisition of citizenship based on the citizenship of the parents.

 

In the Slovak Republic, this matter is regulated by Act No. 40/1993 Coll. on Citizenship of the Slovak Republic. Pursuant to Section 5(1) of this Act:

 

“A child acquires Slovak citizenship by birth,

a) if at least one of the parents is a citizen of the Slovak Republic, or
b) if born on the territory of the Slovak Republic and the parents are stateless, or
c) if born on the territory of the Slovak Republic to foreign nationals and does not acquire the citizenship of either parent by birth.”

 

It follows that any child with at least one parent who was a citizen of the Slovak Republic acquired Slovak citizenship by birth, regardless of the place of birth.

In the Czech Republic, the legal regulation was initially contained in Act No. 40/1993 Coll. on the Acquisition and Loss of Citizenship of the Czech Republic, which was later replaced by Act No. 186/2013 Coll. on Citizenship of the Czech Republic. This Act stipulates in Section 4(1):

 

“A child acquires Czech citizenship by birth if, on the day of birth, at least one of the parents is a citizen of the Czech Republic.”

 

Thus, the Czech legal system is also based on the principle of ius sanguinis, meaning that a child automatically acquires the citizenship of the Czech Republic if at least one parent is a Czech citizen, regardless of the place of birth.

On the basis of these provisions, it is evident that a child born after the dissolution of the CSFR, where one parent was a citizen of the Slovak Republic and the other a citizen of the Czech Republic, could acquire the citizenship of both states by birth – each legal system conferred the citizenship of its own citizen according to its respective legal regulation.

This established the legal basis for dual citizenship acquired at birth, which in such cases is in accordance with the legal systems of both states.