Russian citizenship law
Russian citizenship law details the conditions by which a person holds citizenship of Russia. The primary law governing citizenship requirements is the federal law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation", which came into force on 1 July 2002.
Any person born in Russia to at least one Russian parent, or born overseas to two Russian parents receives Russian citizenship at birth. Foreign nationals may become citizens by admission after meeting a minimum residence requirement, proving a legal source of income, and demonstrating proficiency in the Russian language.
Russia was previously a part of the Soviet Union and its residents were Soviet citizens. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, all post-Soviet states established separate citizenship laws. Although citizens of the former Union Republics are no longer Soviet, they continue to be eligible for a facilitated acquisition of Russian citizenship in which they can be exempted from some requirements for admission as Russian citizens.
The completely new citizenship law of 28 April 2023 138-FZ entered into force on 26 October 2023, and at that moment the old law 62-FZ, which had been in force for more than 20 years, ceased to be in force.
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 to a person's legal belonging to a country 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 country.The Constitution of Russia provides differing definitions for both terms; citizenship is the status given to an individual indicating the state which exercises jurisdiction over that particular person and nationality refers to a person's ethnic group. Soviet regulations required a person's nationality to be indicated on their internal passport, determined by the nationality of their parents. If their parents' nationalities differed, they could choose either nationality. Russian internal passports since the 1990s have omitted this information completely. In the Russian context, the two terms are not interchangeable and cannot be used as a synonym for the other.
History
Romanov Russia
Before the concept of citizenship was codified in legislation, inhabitants of the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire personally owed allegiance to the Russian monarch. There were no general requirements for becoming a Russian subject until the 16th century, when it became customary to treat any person who had been christened by the Russian Orthodox Church as having acquired subjecthood. Foreigners who wished to become Russian subjects were required to swear an oath of personal fealty to the Russian monarch beginning with the reign of Peter the Great. The oath used during this time required the subject to pledge themself as an "obedient slave and eternal subject with my family" of the sovereign and remained unchanged until 1796, when the word "slave" was removed.Provincial governments held wide discretion in determining who could be naturalized 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 had lost 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 Russia and Soviet Union
After the October Revolution in 1917, the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic government abolished all previous imperial legislation. Prevailing Bolshevik theory at the time considered communism to be an international movement, which became reflected in citizenship regulations in the new state. Under the 1918 Russian constitution, local soviets were empowered to directly grant foreigners Soviet citizenship, particularly intended for those belonging to the peasant and working classes. No specific procedures were required to become a Soviet citizen during this time other than obtaining local authority approval. While this model of citizenship acquisition was quite simple and expeditious, contemporary regulations also allowed for citizenship deprivation at any time at the sole discretion of the central government as a deterrence against "the enemies of Soviet power".The RSFSR became a founding member of the Soviet Union in 1922, and 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 Russia 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 RSFSR in 1917 and had not subsequently lost Soviet citizenship, as well as those who had 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.
The 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union established the principle that all Soviet citizens would enjoy protection abroad by the Soviet government. Following its adoption, a new citizenship law was enacted on 1 December 1978 which 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.
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.
Russian Federation
In the waning days of the Union, the RSFSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, which reemphasized the role of republican citizenship within Soviet citizenship. This declaration restated that every citizen of the RSFSR also held citizenship of the USSR. As part of its preparations for a reformed Soviet Union, the RSFSR drafted new citizenship legislation that brought regulations in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Under this law, citizenship could no longer be deprived at the sole discretion of the government and holding multiple citizenships ceased to be strictly prohibited, though this was only explicitly allowed in cases where the RSFSR had a bilateral agreement on dual citizenship. This law was adopted on 28 November 1991 but did not come into force until 6 February 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.Former Soviet citizens who were permanently resident in Russia on 6 February 1992 automatically became Russian citizens unless they explicitly applied to refuse citizenship by 6 February 1993. Residence was based on a person's officially listed place of domicile in the propiska system. Any other former Soviet citizen could obtain Russian citizenship by registration if they migrated to Russia between 6 February 1992 and 31 December 2000, or before 6 February 1995 if they were resident in a former Union Republic and had not become citizens of that new country. Stateless persons living in Russia or a Union Republic that had remained part of the Soviet Union on 1 September 1991 could register as Russian citizens by 6 February 1993. Spouses, children, and other lineal descendants of Russian citizens were eligible for citizenship by registration without time limit. Children of former Russian citizens who were born after their parents' loss of citizenship had a right to register as Russian citizens within five years of reaching age 18.