- Routes
- Citizen by descent (Art. 18)
- Dual citizenship
- Kept on every open route
- Comes with
- EU citizenship: the right to live and work in 27 countries
The stamps assume no one in the line became a citizen of another country before the next person in the line was born. What changes each answer is below.
On this page›
- 01Who qualifies
- 02Dates that matter
- 03Mothers’ lines
- 04Keeping your citizenship
- 05The routes and the law
- 06The documents
- 07What it takes
- 08Where the records live
- 09Former places
- 10Law changes
- 11Other doors
- 12Sources
01Who qualifies
Who qualifies, generation by generation
LIKELY
Can you claim French citizenship through a parent?
Citizen by descent
A child of a French parent is French. The consulate issues a certificate of nationality on proof of the parent's nationality.
What changes the answer
- POSSIBLE
If your ancestor left France before 1976Your parent was French, but after more than fifty years abroad the law presumes the nationality lost unless your parent or you kept some tie that shows it: a French passport, identity card, consular registration or voting.
UNLIKELY
Can you claim French citizenship through a grandparent?
Barred by fifty years of non-use
In principle French nationality passes without limit, but a person whose family has lived abroad for fifty years without any act of French nationality cannot prove it. Grandparent and great-grandparent lines are usually barred on this ground.
What would settle itWhether anyone in your line registered with a French consulate, held a French passport, or otherwise exercised French nationality within the last fifty years.
UNLIKELY
Can you claim French citizenship through a great-grandparent?
Barred by fifty years of non-use
In principle French nationality passes without limit, but a person whose family has lived abroad for fifty years without any act of French nationality cannot prove it. Grandparent and great-grandparent lines are usually barred on this ground.
What would settle itWhether anyone in your line registered with a French consulate, held a French passport, or otherwise exercised French nationality within the last fifty years.
02Dates that matter
The dates that matter
- 1968
- 2025
- 2025
03Mothers’ lines
How mothers’ lines were treated
France’s rule gives the same answer whether the line runs through a mother or a father. Where its reasons speak of mothers or fathers, they say:
04Keeping your citizenship
Dual citizenship with your home country
You keep your citizenship.
On every open route, the rule lets a citizen of the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina or South Africa keep that citizenship.
05The routes
Every route, and the law behind it
Citizen by descent
Open through a parent
The law
- A child of whom at least one parent is French is French. French Civil Code, Art. 18 (descent), Art. 30-3 (loss by non-use over fifty years), Art. 23-6 (loss by disuse), Art. 18 ↗
- A person who, like the parent through whom they claim, has lived abroad for more than fifty years without the possession d’état of a French national cannot prove French nationality by descent. French Civil Code, Art. 18 (descent), Art. 30-3 (loss by non-use over fifty years), Art. 23-6 (loss by disuse), Art. 30-3 ↗
- The Court of Cassation applied this to a woman born in 1968 in Armenia whose French-born mother had left France as an infant in 1936 and never used her nationality; her claim failed. Court of Cassation, 1st civil chamber, 29 June 2022, no. 21-10.810 ↗
- The Constitutional Council upheld Article 30-3 in April 2025. Constitutional Council, decision 2025-1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025 ↗
What would settle an unsure case
- Whether your parent (or you) held a French passport or identity card, registered at a French consulate, or otherwise acted as French within the last fifty years.
- UNLIKELY
Through a grandparentIn principle French nationality passes without limit, but a person whose family has lived abroad for fifty years without any act of French nationality cannot prove it. Grandparent and great-grandparent lines are usually barred on this ground.
The law
What would settle an unsure case
- Whether anyone in your line registered with a French consulate, held a French passport, or otherwise exercised French nationality within the last fifty years.
06The documents
The documents, as the rule lists them
Citizen by descent
Through a parent
- Your parent's French birth certificate or certificate of nationality
- Your birth certificate
- Your parents' marriage certificate
Through a parent, if your ancestor left France before 1976
- Your parent's French birth certificate
- Any French passport, identity card, consular registration or electoral record held by your parent or you
- Your birth certificate
Most countries also want proof that no one in the line became a citizen elsewhere before the next birth: the naturalization record with its date, or a letter that none exists.
07What it takes
What it takes: time, cost, the hard part, who decides
Citizen by descent
- Time
- The statutory period is 6–18 months for the certificate of nationality (CNF), then a passport, but the Paris pôle de la nationalité is badly under-staffed and real waits for those born abroad often run 2–3 years as of 2026.
- Cost
- About $300–600 in apostilles and translations. The certificate is free.
- The hard part
- The fifty-year rule: if neither you nor your parent used French nationality for fifty years, it may be treated as lost. Any French passport, consular registration or vote in the chain resets that.
- Who decides
- The tribunal judiciaire (Pôle de la nationalité) for the consulate district, via the consulate.
- The first record
- Your parent’s French birth record (acte de naissance), from The mairie of their birthplace, or the Service Central d’État Civil for births abroad. Request online; free, delivered by post in a few weeks. service-public.gouv.fr ↗
How it’s filed
- Where
- Tribunal judiciaire de Paris, service de la nationalité française (Pôle de la nationalité), by post from abroad; the consulate may call the member in to show originals office list ↗
- How
- By post; no appearance needed
- Fee
- No fee
- Decision
- 6–36 months
What goes in the file (9)›
- Cerfa 16237, completed, dated and signed, with an email address; family tree annex
- Member's birth record: full copy (copie intégrale), original, in the original language, apostilled, with sworn French translation
- Member's official ID document (legible copy accepted)
- Proof of address (tax notice or utility bill under 3 months)
- French parent's birth record (copie intégrale)
- Record establishing filiation to the French parent: parents' marriage record or acknowledgment
- If the parent was French by descent: birth records of every ascendant up to the first French ascendant, with each link's marriage or acknowledgment record, and that ascendant's proof (double jus soli birth records, decree or declaration)
- Evidence of possession d'état for the member and the parent (French passports, ID cards, consular registration, voter cards)
- Any court decision declaring the member or the parent French
What goes wrong (6)›
- Free. Originals only, translations included; copies are refused except for ID documents.
- The court clerk has 6 months from the receipt (récépissé) to decide, extendable twice by 6 months. Silence at the end means refusal, which can be challenged at the Tribunal judiciaire de Paris within 6 months. Real waits reported at 2–3 years (takes); unverified.
- People born abroad send the request straight to the Paris court by post (service-public F1051), not through the consulate as takes says.
- Art. 30-3: if the member and the French parent never had possession d'état and the family has lived abroad more than fifty years, descent cannot be proved.
- No naturalization proof is asked for: since the 1973 reform a French national who acquires a foreign nationality does not lose French nationality, so the CNF file does not need evidence the ancestor stayed exclusively French. The real risk to the claim is the fifty-year non-use bar above, not naturalization.
- From CA, GB, AU, NZ, BR, AR, ZA: same Paris court and procedure. Home records need that country's apostille and a sworn French translation.
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
Estimates are honest ranges from official fee tables and what families report; where a fee or time could not be confirmed, it says so.
08Where the records live
Where each record lives, and how to ask for it
birth1792–2026
The mairie (service de l'état civil) of the commune of birth; registers over 100 years old are also deposited with the département's archives départementales.
The commune of birth; the national directory of mairies is on service-public.gouv.fr (lannuaire). Old registers are online per département at the archives départementales, with no single national index.
- Fee
- 0 EUR (about $0)
- Takes
- 1–6 weeks
Good to know (3)›
- Free. Ask for the copie intégrale (full copy): the CNF requires originals of full copies. Online requests work for most communes; some small mairies take only a letter on plain paper (template).
- Direct descendants may get a copy at any time; others wait 75 years (service-public F1427).
- Before 1792, parish registers (also at the archives départementales).
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
birth
Service central d'état civil (SCEC, Nantes), Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs: births, marriages and deaths of French nationals abroad that were registered or transcribed by a consulate.
When the French parent was themself born abroad (or the member's birth was already transcribed).
- Fee
- 0 EUR (about $0)
- Takes
- 1–9 weeks
Good to know (1)›
- Free; delivered by post or electronically. Turnaround unverified; widened.
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
marriage1792–2026
The mairie where the French parent married (or SCEC for marriages abroad transcribed by a consulate); U.S. marriages from the county or state.
- Fee
- 0 EUR (about $0)
- Takes
- 1–6 weeks
Good to know (1)›
- Needed to establish filiation to the French parent (service-public F1051).
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
citizenship
The French parent's own proof of nationality and of possession d'état: French passport or ID card (valid or expired), consular card or entry on the Registre des Français établis hors de France, voter card, military papers, or their own CNF.
Family papers first; the consulate that registered the parent holds registration records.
- Ask
- By email, in French
- Takes
- 1–13 weeks
Good to know (1)›
- This evidence is what defeats the Art. 30-3 fifty-year bar: any use of French nationality by the member or the transmitting parent within fifty years.
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
Translations
- Into
- French
- Who may translate
- A sworn translator in the country
- About
- $40–$100 a page
For the CNF every foreign-language document needs an original translation by a translator on a French cour d'appel's list of approved experts (traducteur expert agréé). A multilingual extract that includes French needs none. Foreign documents need an apostille (U.S. records: the issuing state's apostille). Per-page price unverified.
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
The passport
- Where
- The French consulate for the member's address, in person, after the CNF and transcription of the birth into the French civil register (SCEC); €96 adult, paid by timbre fiscal or at the consulate in USD at the chancery rate.
- Fee
- About $109
- Time
- 3–13 weeks
Checked 25 September 2026 · source ↗
09Former places
Places on old papers that lead to France
If your family’s records name one of these, France’s law may be the one that applies. The town decides.
10Law changes
Recent and pending changes
The legislative watch has no pending bill or recent ruling recorded for France.
Already in the rule
The watch re-reads the official pages behind this guide every day. When one changes, a person re-checks the rule before anything here moves.
11Other doors
If descent doesn’t reach you
4 residence programs lead to France without an ancestor, each with its own law and road to citizenship.
12Sources
Every source on this page
3 laws and official pages behind the answers, then the offices and pages behind the records and filing. Records and filing checked 25 September 2026.
- LawFrench Civil Code, Art. 18 (descent), Art. 30-3 (loss by non-use over fifty years), Art. 23-6 (loss by disuse) · Art. 18; Art. 30-3
- LawCourt of Cassation, 1st civil chamber, 29 June 2022, no. 21-10.810
- LawConstitutional Council, decision 2025-1130/1131/1132/1133 QPC of 11 April 2025
- RecordsThe mairie of their birthplace, or the Service Central d’État Civil for births abroad: Your parent’s French birth record (acte de naissance) · checked 25 September 2026
- RecordsCerfa n°16237 Demande de certificat de nationalité française (with notice 52373 and the family-tree annex) · checked 25 September 2026
- RecordsBirth records, 1792–2026: The mairie · checked 25 September 2026
- RecordsThe passport: where, the fee and the wait · checked 25 September 2026
Not legal advice. Postern’s rulebook is written from the statutes and tested against documented cases; where the law is unsettled, the answer says “possible” or “unsure” rather than guess.