Ukrainian nationality law
Ukrainian nationality law details the conditions by which a person holds nationality of Ukraine. The primary law governing these requirements is the law "On Citizenship of Ukraine", which came into force on 1 March 2001. In June 2025, Ukraine legalized multiple citizenship.
Any person born to at least one Ukrainian parent automatically receives Ukrainian citizenship at birth. Foreign nationals may naturalize after legally residing in the country for at least five years, demonstrating proficiency in the Ukrainian language, and renouncing any previous nationalities.
Ukraine was previously a constituent republic of the Soviet Union and local residents were Soviet citizens. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, all post-Soviet states established separate citizenship laws. Although Ukrainians no longer hold Soviet citizenship, they remain eligible for facilitated naturalisation or a change of nationality in some other former Soviet republics.
Terminology
The distinction between the meaning of the terms citizenship and nationality is not always clear in the English language and differs by country. Generally, nationality refers a person's legal belonging to a state and is the common term used in international treaties when referring to members of a state; citizenship refers to the set of rights and duties a person has in that nation.In the Soviet context, nationality was used to describe ethnicity rather than the population of a state. Soviet citizenship law was extremely permissive and allowed virtually any person in the world to become a Soviet citizen with no specific requirements. Union Republics in the late Soviet era used differing methods to delineate their new national constituencies, based largely on the majority ethnic composition of that polity. The post-Soviet Ukrainian definition of national membership relies on a link to the territorial bounds of the modern state by birth, permanent residence, or close family connection. Any person who fell within that definition became part of the Ukrainian nation.
History
Ukraine under Imperial Russia
Following the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, nearly all of Ruthenia fell under control of the Russian Empire. The region was incorporated into the empire as "Little Russia". During this time, there were no general requirements to become a Russian subject other than becoming christened by the Russian Orthodox Church and swearing an oath of personal fealty to the Russian monarch.Provincial governments held wide discretion in determining who could naturalize as Russian subjects until 10 February 1864, when the imperial government introduced a five-year residence requirement and shifted authority over naturalization from provincial authorities to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire. The residence requirement could be reduced for individuals who performed an extraordinary service for the Russian state, were especially talented or highly skilled in a scientific field, or made significant investments in the empire. The term "citizenship" became introduced in this reform as a different name for the concept of subjecthood.
Russian women who married foreign men automatically lost Russian subject status. A formerly Russian widow or divorcée who lost had her Russian subject status through marriage could petition a provincial authority for restoration of that status. Other Russian subjects could separately apply for the end of their subjecthood through the Ministry of Internal Affairs with approval from the Emperor. Any person who became a foreign subject or citizen without prior government approval could be punished by the deprivation of their rights or banishment to Siberia.
Revolutionary Ukraine
The Ukrainian People's Republic established Ukrainian citizenship for the first time when it adopted citizenship laws on 2 and 4 March 1918, just as Soviet Russia recognized the UPR's independence under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The laws instituted jus soli, prohibited dual citizenship, and required "registration of citizenship through the process of proving one's right to citizenship through witnesses." The legislation was vulnerable to "undemocratic" abuse, and many provisions were "incorrectly formulated" so as to make compliance impossible. Therefore, the Central Council planned a revision.The German-backed Ukrainian State seized control in April and adopted a law based on the UPR's proposed changes on 2 July. This law claimed as citizens all Russian subjects who resided in Ukraine and did not formally reject Ukrainian citizenship. The UPR resumed power in December. The autonomous Western Oblast of the UPR, whose territory remained in dispute with Poland, saw citizenship legislation enacted on 8 April 1919. This law likewise conferred citizenship on everyone who belonged to one of the oblast's communities and who did not reject it.
Poland occupied most of the Western Oblast's territory by July, and the UPR recognized the territory as part of Poland in April 1920. In September of the same year, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the UPR, then in exile in Tarnów, stated in a letter that the Ukrainian State citizenship law remained valid. By November, the UPR had decisively lost the last of its territory, which was divided in 1921 between Poland, Soviet Russia, and the Ukrainian SSR.
Constituent Soviet republic
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922. Citizenship regulations were restructured under the authority of the All-Union government following adoption of the 1924 Constitution of the Soviet Union. Every person living within the borders of the USSR was a Soviet citizen unless they declared themselves as foreign citizens. Soviet citizens also held citizenship of the Union Republic in which they were permanently resident, although republican citizenship was symbolic and held no substantive meaning. Standard regulations in other countries required wives and children to hold the same citizenship as the male head of the family. Soviet legislation deviated from the contemporary international norm and allowed Soviet women who married foreign men to retain their Soviet citizenship after marriage. Any imperial Russian subjects who had permanently departed the Russian Empire before 7 November 1917 and had acquired foreign citizenship or applied for such status were deprived of Russian/Soviet citizenship by decree in 1933.The first piece of legislation governing solely on the issue of citizenship was the 1938 Soviet Citizenship Law, which provided a redefinition for who held Soviet citizenship. Unlike previous regulations which automatically granted citizenship to virtually all residents of the USSR, this law defined Soviet citizens as anybody who had been a Russian subject at the time of the founding of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1917 and had not subsequently lost Soviet citizenship, as well as those who had otherwise lawfully obtained citizenship. All other people resident in the USSR who neither held Soviet citizenship nor could prove foreign citizenship were treated as stateless persons. Citizenship could be deprived under this law as part of a court decision or by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. All Soviet Jews who permanently migrated to Israel were stripped of Soviet citizenship by decree beginning in 1967.
Following adoption of the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union, which established the principle that all Soviet citizens would enjoy protection abroad from the Soviet government, a new citizenship law was enacted on 1 December 1978. This law prohibited the extradition of Soviet citizens to any foreign jurisdiction and formally barred holding multiple citizenships. Citizenship was held to be a unique relationship between a citizen and country, and any deviation from that was considered a violation of loyalty to the state, which led to a potential deprivation of citizenship. A 1981 Ukrainian Supreme Soviet decree allowed foreign citizens to acquire republican citizenship of the Ukrainian SSR but contained no mechanism for existing Soviet citizens to convert their existing republican citizenships.
During the reform period of glasnost and perestroika, Soviet citizenship law was revised for a final time in 1990. The modified legislation transferred responsibility for citizenship deprivation from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to the President of the Soviet Union and greatly limited the circumstances in which this power would be exercised. Soviet citizenship could now only be deprived from individuals who enlisted in foreign militaries or other governmental bodies, permanently lived abroad and failed to register at a Soviet consulate for at least five years, or had fraudulently acquired citizenship.
Transition and immediate post-Soviet period
In the waning days of the Union, the Ukrainian SSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, which established a separate citizenship from that of the Union. Requirements for this status were detailed in the 1991 citizenship law that defined the initial citizenry of the new state. Debate over this legislation in the Supreme Soviet was split between the nationalists and anti-reform communists. While the nationalists saw the future Ukrainian nation as a multinational state with a foundational core of ethnic Ukrainian citizens, the communists subscribed to a single pan-East Slavic identity that consisted of all Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. The communists pushed for wording that emphasised ties to the rest of the Soviet Union, but the nationalists advocated for a stronger separation of Union and Ukrainian citizenships to accelerate the process towards independence.Following the August Coup in Moscow and Ukraine's subsequent Declaration of Independence, the likelihood of a reformed Soviet Union diminished greatly. The communists in the Verkhovna Rada shifted towards supporting dual citizenship to facilitate the maintenance of close political ties with Russia and the possibility of a future union state. However, the nationalists feared that the extension of Russian jurisdiction over Ukrainians through citizenship would undermine Ukraine's newfound independence. A motion to add provisions allowing dual citizenship failed by only two votes in the legislature. The final version of the citizenship law that became effective on 13 November 1991 stated that dual citizenship would be allowed on bilateral agreement with another country, but no such treaty was ever signed. Having come into force prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this law retained a provision that explicitly gave Ukrainian citizens the right to retain Soviet citizenship.
Any person who was a permanent resident of Ukraine and held no other citizenship automatically became Ukrainian citizens on 13 November 1991. Individuals who were born in the country, or whose parent or grandparent was born in Ukraine, were also eligible to acquire citizenship. Overseas residents who were employed in government service or studying abroad and were born or otherwise permanently resident in Ukraine could register as Ukrainian citizens within one year of the law's effective date. Registration eligibility was later expanded in 1997 to include any person who was not domiciled in Ukraine on 13 November 1991 but was born or permanently resident in the country and held no other foreign nationality. Any descendants of someone who registered as a Ukrainian citizen also received citizenship as part of this provision. Qualified individuals who failed to register by the end of 1999 nevertheless continue to be eligible for a facilitated acquisition of citizenship with no residence or language requirements.