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If you\u2019re looking to leave the United States for greener pastures, that process is about to get a whole lot cheaper.<\/p>\n
Starting next month, the cost of renouncing your U.S. citizenship will go down dramatically\u2014a boon for people already shouldering the burden of paying for a major overseas move. Those wishing to formally shed their American citizenship are required to obtain a form called a Certificate of Loss of Nationality (CLN), and right now it comes with a whopping $2,350 fee.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In April, that fee will drop by 80%, to $450, according to a final rule recently published in the Federal Register<\/em>. The State Department says the change is designed to \u201chelp alleviate the cost burden for those individuals who decide to request CLN services,\u201d and will bring the fee in line with what it was prior to a price hike in 2015. \u201cA $450 fee is a significant decrease from the current fee that, when adjusted for inflation, represents less of a financial burden than the same fee did when it was first adopted in 2010,\u201d the State Department wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n People seeking a safe haven from the current political chaos in the U.S. aren\u2019t the only ones who might need a Certificate of Loss of Nationality. American citizens already living abroad might want to officially renounce their citizenship<\/a> to avoid filing taxes in the U.S., particularly if they\u2019ve never lived there or don\u2019t plan on moving back<\/a>. <\/p>\n Like other paperwork gauntlets associated with American citizenship, obtaining the certificate needed to seal the deal can take many months or more. That process is complicated by a backlog of appointment requests and a steady rise in how many people are now moving out of the U.S.\u2014with some looking to give up their U.S. citizenship for good.<\/p>\n Last year, more people moved out of the U.S. than into it, a phenomenon that hasn\u2019t happened in almost a century<\/a>. The U.S. experienced a loss of around 150,000 people in 2025, a number that factors in the roughly 2.6 million people who moved into the country during the same time period. Just two years prior, more than twice that many people were immigrating to the U.S.<\/p>\n The Department of Homeland Security said in January that 675,000 people were deported from the U.S. last year, but it also noted that 2.2 million were so-called \u201cself-deportations\u201d; however, both numbers are difficult to verify<\/a>. President Donald Trump may be walking back his rhetoric around mass deportation ahead of the midterm elections, but it\u2019s not yet clear that this administration plans to ease off on immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s aggressive, scattershot immigration policies can account for some of the country\u2019s dwindling numbers, but more American citizens are decamping of their own accord, too. As The Wall Street Journal<\/em> reports<\/a>, Americans are moving to almost every corner of Europe in record numbers. They are flooding into countries like Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Germany to live and work, leaving the U.S. behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nearly half of Americans have considered moving abroad, according to a Harris poll published last year. With cost-of-living woes ongoing and the U.S. diving headlong into an unpopular war, it\u2019s unlikely those numbers will tip back toward the states any time soon.<\/p>\nMore people are leaving the U.S.<\/h2>\n