Updated August 11, 2026

HU-CBD

Citizenship by descent

Hungarian citizenshipby descent

We help you obtain Hungarian citizenship by descent — from finding the ancestor and recovering the documents to filing the application and receiving the passport.

Get a preliminary assessment

No move and no investment
The generations are not limited
We find the documents

No residenceThere is no need to move to Hungary

No state feeNothing is paid to the state for the application

The whole familyChildren, parents, brothers and sisters

01 / The mechanism

What this programme is

Hungary gives citizenship to the direct descendants of its citizens. It is a simplified naturalisation under the law: there is no need to live in Hungary or to evidence income and housing — what is needed is documentary proof of the ancestor and the line of descent.

An EU passport with no investment

Hungary has no citizenship-for-money programme and never has had one. Investment buys an investor’s residence permit — a different status and a different procedure.

No move to Hungary

For descendants the law expressly lifts the requirement of residence, and decree 125/1993 exempts them from evidencing housing and income. The application is filed at the Hungarian consulate for your place of residence.

The generations are not limited

The law speaks of an ancestor in the direct ascending line and names no number of generations: a great-grandfather and a great-great-grandfather both qualify. The limit is documentary — every link of descent has to be evidenced.

You can start without ready documents

If you do not know the exact history of the ancestor, or almost nothing has survived in the family, we start from the surnames, towns and relatives you know and rebuild the line from the archives.

The ground is act LV of 1993 on citizenship. BRIDGES checks the family history, finds the documents, prepares the application and runs the procedure. The decision is taken by the competent Hungarian authority.

02 / Checks

What a Hungarian passport gives you

It is a full European Union passport — one of the strongest in the world.

The whole of Europe to live in

To live, work, study and run a business in 27 EU countries, and in Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland. With no visas, no permits and no quotas.

Travel without visas

Schengen with no borders since 2007. Britain, the United States, Canada, Japan and almost the whole world — without a visa or on simplified rules.

Education for the children

The universities of Europe on equal terms with locals: tuition at local rates and access to the European scholarship programmes.

Medicine and social rights

The European health insurance card and the coordination of EU social systems on a par with the citizens of the country where you live.

It passes to the children

Children born after the oath become Hungarian citizens at birth — whichever country they are born in.

The ancestor’s surname restored

Together with the application you may take back the ancestor’s Hungarian surname and the Hungarian form of the given name. The change takes effect on the day of the oath.

A preliminary assessment

Find out the cost

Set out who is applying with you. In the preliminary assessment we go through the family history for that composition and name the timelines, the cost of the support and the first step.

Who is applying for citizenship?

Get the calculation

about a minuteno obligationsconfidential

The cost of the support for your composition
The timeline for each stage of the work
A plan of action: where to start

Documents for a Hungarian citizenship-by-descent application

03 / Why it is needed

Why people obtain a Hungarian passport

Every family has its own reason, but most often there are four.

The reason 01

A move to Europe

EU citizenship removes the question of visas, work permits and quotas. The passport is Hungarian, but you may live in Austria, Germany or the Netherlands — the right is one across the union.

The reason 02

The children’s future

A European university at local rates and a free labour market after graduation. After that the citizenship passes to their children in turn.

The reason 03

The family history

For many this is not a migration project but the restoration of what history took away: shifting borders, deportations, a surname changed under compulsion.

The reason 04

A plan B for the family

Citizenship is not renewed and is not lost because you live in another country. The decision is taken once and stays for good.

Every country on a Hungarian passport

170+ destinations with nothing to arrange in advance — visa-free or with a visa on arrival

Where you are let in without a visa, where the authorisation is arranged online, where the visa is issued at the border and where a consular one is needed — with the length of stay given for each country.

04 / Grounds

Who can obtain citizenship

One ground may extend to several generations of the same family. The documents on the ancestor are gathered once and used when preparing the relatives’ applications. Even so, every adult files their own application.

Files the application themselves
May at the same time bring children, parents and siblings into the family package

A separate application is prepared for each child
The child’s documents are filed together with the family set
The shared documents on the ancestor do not have to be gathered again

Adult children file applications of their own
Their cases can be prepared at the same time as their parents’
The shared archive base for the family line is used

Each of them may obtain citizenship if they are a direct descendant of a qualifying ancestor
A separate application is prepared for each adult
A parent’s ground is usually stronger: they are a generation closer to the ancestor

Marriage gives rise to no right to citizenship on this ground
For a spouse the law gives a separate route: ten years of marriage to a Hungarian citizen
Or five years of marriage where there is a child in common
Once you have citizenship, a spouse may arrange the right to live with you in Hungary or another EU country

05 / Evidence

Which documents are needed

We prepare the full set of documents for restoring and obtaining Hungarian citizenship.

01You gather these

From you

A valid passport and a photograph
A birth certificate
Marriage, divorce or a change of name
The consent of both parents for a child

02We gather these together

The line of descent

Birth certificates by generation
Certificates of marriage and change of surname
Documents linking the different spellings
The ancestor’s birth and marriage records

03We do it for you

We prepare these

The application form in Hungarian
Certified translations and legalisation
The forms for registering the birth and the marriage
Support at the filing in the consulate

04We do this work

Where we search

The state archives of Hungary
The church registers
The archives of Transcarpathia and Transylvania
The archives of Vojvodina and Slovakia

06 / How we work

How the Hungarian case is run

From the review of the family tree to the oath we run the whole process. Everything that can be done without you we take on ourselves.

STEP 1

The review of the family tree — 1–2 weeks

You tell us about the family and hand over what you have: certificates, old passports, letters, photographs. If there are few documents, names, dates and the names of towns are enough.

We settle which procedure is yours and say plainly if the ground is weak. At this point the scale of the archive work also becomes clear.

STEP 2

The agreement and the plan of the project — 1–2 days

We settle the family composition, the scope of the archive and legal work, the stages, the timelines and the budget.

Once it is signed we assign you a lawyer, an archivist and a coordinator.

STEP 3

Archives and documents — 2–12 months

Requests to the state and church archives of Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia, the recovery of records and the resolution of discrepancies in surnames.

It is the least predictable stage: in one place the answer comes in a month, in another the register is lost and the proof has to be built by another route.

STEP 4

The package, the translations and the legalisation — 1–2 months

We fill in the application form and prepare the certified translations and the legalisation of the documents.

We check the set for discrepancies in names and dates, so that no request to complete the documents comes back on the case.

STEP 5

Filing and consideration — from 4–6 months

The application is filed in person: at the Hungarian consulate or at a district office inside the country. An official verifies the identity and takes a photograph, a signature and fingerprints.

After that the Hungarian authority considers the case. Following a positive decision we run the oath and the arrangement of the passport.

The oath has to be taken within a year of the first summons — otherwise the decision loses its force. It is the only deadline that depends on the applicant.

Citizenship by descent is not the purchase of a status but the restoration of a connection that history broke.

HungaryIn the European Union since 2004Act LV of 1993

Check the ground

07 / After the decision

What happens after the decision

After a positive decision what remains is the oath and the arrangement of a citizen’s documents. There is no need to move to Hungary for that.

The oath

It is set after a positive decision — in Hungary or at the consulate for your place of residence. Citizenship arises on the day of the oath.

The Hungarian passport

It is arranged after the oath together with the identity card. We book the appointment and prepare the documents.

The documents of the whole family

We follow the oath and the passports for every family member who filed a separate application.

Children born afterwards

They become Hungarian citizens at birth whatever the country of birth — nothing has to be proved separately.

Your present passport

Hungary requires no renunciation. We only check whether the country of your present passport allows a second citizenship.

The ancestor’s surname

Together with the application you may take back the ancestor’s Hungarian surname and the Hungarian form of the given name.

08 / Our role

Why people run a Hungarian case with us

We have worked since 2004. Such cases are won in the archives: what matters is finding the ancestor, evidencing the line of descent and assembling the case so that no questions arise about it.

We check the ground first

Before the agreement we go through the family tree and say plainly: there is a ground, there is none, or an archive search with an uncertain outcome is needed. We do not offer work with no prospect.

We find the documents for you

The state and church archives of Hungary, Transcarpathia, Transylvania, Vojvodina and Slovakia, the registers and the discrepancies in surnames. You do not have to write the requests yourself.

We prepare the applications for the whole family

The ancestors’ documents are gathered once, and after that the authority draws them from the first case. We build the order of filing so that this works for you.

We promise nothing impossible

We do not guarantee the state’s decision and do not name timelines that do not exist. Our task is to assemble the case so that no questions arise about it, and to show the risks in advance.

09 / Team

Who runs the Hungarian case

A permanent team works on a family case: a citizenship lawyer, an archives specialist and a family coordinator. You know them all by name from the first day.

Irena SokolovskaHead of Europe OfficeThe strategy for the case and complex situations

Karim NaserHead of Istanbul OfficeRunning it legally, the documents and the filing

Martina VeberHead of Case ProcessingThe Hungarian side, the archives and the translations

Sofia MendesInvestment Migration ExpertCoordinating the family and contact at every stage

10 / Case studies

Hungarian cases from our practice

Names and details are changed by agreement with the clients; the facts of the cases are real.

Hungary

How to obtain an EU passport by descent when only one document of an ancestor survives

ancestry proved, EU passport obtainedView

Hungary

How Hungarian ancestry was proved through archives and a court when the record officially did not exist

the fact established by the court, EU passport obtainedView

Hungary

How a wife’s ancestry gave EU passports to the whole family

EU passports for the whole familyView

Hungary

How to obtain an EU passport when the key document of ancestry is torn and barely legible

ancestry proved, EU passport obtainedView

Hungary

How Transylvanian Roots Led to Hungarian Passport Through Simplified Naturalization

from €250k both pillars secured · EU passportView

All cases →

11 / Questions

Answers to common questions

No. Hungary has no investment programme for citizenship. Investment buys an investor’s residence permit — a different status and a different page.

There is no limit on the number of generations: a great-grandfather and a great-great-grandfather both qualify. What matters is evidencing every link of descent with documents. Collateral kinship — an uncle, an aunt, a great-uncle — gives no ground.

No. Residence, income and housing do not have to be evidenced for this procedure. The application is filed at the Hungarian consulate for your place of residence.

Yes, that is the most frequent story. Until 1920 Transcarpathia was part of the Kingdom of Hungary, and in 1939–1944 it was Hungarian again. The key thing is evidencing the ancestor’s place of birth. Those born there after 1945 no longer give a ground: we look for it a generation higher.

That is the usual situation, not a dead end. A body of evidence is assembled from the neighbouring entries in the same registers, from church collections and from the documents of collateral relatives. The law allows Hungarian descent to be evidenced, not only the ancestor’s citizenship proved directly.

Hungary requires no renunciation. What has to be checked is something else: how the law of the country of your present passport treats a second citizenship.

By descent, no — citizenship does not pass through marriage. For a spouse the law gives a separate route: ten years of marriage to a Hungarian citizen, or five with a child in common. Once you have citizenship, a spouse may arrange the right to live with you.

Minors are filed together with a parent and need no ground of their own. The child is present at the filing in person — a photograph and a signature are taken. Children born after the oath become Hungarian citizens at birth.

The consulates put the consideration after filing at from 4–6 months, and that is without the archive search. With the search and the preparation it is realistic to reckon on a year or more.

There is no state duty and no administrative fee for the procedure itself. The costs are the archive requests, the certified translations, the legalisation and the support. We name the estimate after going through the family tree, when the scope of the work is clear.

Yes, together with the naturalisation application. You may take your own or the ancestor’s former Hungarian surname and the Hungarian form of the given name. The change takes effect on the day of the oath.

12 / Materials

Useful materials on Hungary

Look through the conditions for obtaining citizenship, the requirements for the documents and the order of the work. The materials are prepared both for families who know their ancestor and for those only beginning to look into their descent.

The main materialPresentation

Hungarian citizenship by descent

The presentation gathers the essentials on obtaining citizenship for the direct descendants of Hungarian citizens.

Inside:

who can obtain citizenship
which family members file together
what to do if the ancestor or the documents are unknown
which archives are checked for your territories
which documents will be needed
how work with BRIDGES is organised
what happens after the decision and the oath

PDF · free · current as of August 2026

A short check of the family tree: which details about ancestors point to Hungarian descent and when an archive search is needed.

The list of documents on the applicant, the direct line of descent and the ancestor, marking what has to be translated and legalised.

We explain how to begin a check from a few surnames, towns, photographs, letters and family stories.

13 / The chronology

How this right came about

This is not a one-off measure: the mechanism has worked for more than fifteen years, and the conditions as to the ancestor have not changed since.

2011

The 2010 amendment XLIV came into force: simplified naturalisation by descent appeared, with no requirement of residence in Hungary.

From that moment a descendant living anywhere in the world can file an application.

2019

Under EU regulation 2016/1191 the certified translations of sworn translators from European Union countries are accepted.

Some documents from the EU stopped needing an apostille — the preparation grew cheaper.

2020

Applicants are automatically issued an identity card, so a photograph, a signature and fingerprints are taken at the filing.

Appearing in person became compulsory for children too — in practice from the age of six.

2026

The conditions as to the ancestor and the line of descent have not changed, and Hungary still has no investment programme.

We follow the version of the law and the practice of the consulates and tell clients about changes.

Worth having

We will go through your family tree

Tell us everything you know about your parents, grandparents and older generations. We will settle whether there is a ground, which procedure is yours and what will have to be searched for in the archives.

Inside the document

A conclusion on the ground: there is one, there is none, or an archive search is needed
A plan for searching the documents across your territories
Realistic timelines and the structure of the costs
The next stage of the work with BRIDGES

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14 / Sources