Slovak Citizenship Act: What the 2026 amendment changed for citizenship by descent

On July 15, 2026, an amendment to the Citizenship Act took effect, bringing what is often called the 2026 reform of Slovak citizenship by descent. The reform removed the residence permit requirement, took the Immigration Police out of the process, and left the qualification criteria unchanged. It also added a duty that had not stood there before: every application must now include a document or record showing that the ancestor was a Czechoslovak citizen.

The citizenship-by-descent route was introduced on April 1, 2022. Four years later, the 2026 amendment changed how an application is made, not who may make one. What follows is each change in turn, what a file now has to establish, and what the new duty means in practice.

The 2026 amendment at a glance

Who qualifies: Unchanged, word for word

Our translation. Subsection 1(a) is the ordinary requirement of eight years’ continuous permanent residence.

Read side by side, the two texts differ in one respect: the words about holding a residence permit are gone. Everything that describes the ancestor is the same. No family that qualified before July 15, 2026, stopped qualifying because of the amendment.

The residence permit: What it was, and why its removal matters

Until July 15, 2026, applicants seeking Slovak citizenship by descent had to obtain a Slovak residence permit first. This required a separate procedure before a second authority, the Immigration Police, with its own appointment and its own file. In practice, a residence permit application also provided an early opportunity to examine the applicant’s claim through their Czechoslovak ancestor, including the evidence of that ancestor’s citizenship. As a result, applicants faced an initial assessment of their claim before the Ministry of the Interior formally considered their citizenship application.

That stage no longer exists. There is one procedure and one authority. For most of our clients, who have never lived in Slovakia and do not plan to, this is the change they will actually feel.

The new written duty: Section 8(3)(k) of the Slovak Citizenship Act

Section 8(3) lists what an applicant “shall submit” with the application. Since July 15, 2026, the list includes Section 8(3)(k):

A document or record by which the applicant demonstrates that the applicant’s parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent was a Czechoslovak citizen born in the territory of the Slovak Republic, if the application for citizenship of the Slovak Republic is filed under Section 7(8).

Our translation.

Before July 15, 2026, this item was not on the list. The attachment is mandatory.

Much of the commentary on the amendment suggests that this changes nothing, since applicants always had to show that they met the eligibility conditions. As far as the condition goes, that is right: it is the same condition. Two things are new all the same, and both matter to anyone preparing a file.

First, the obligation to provide evidence is now expressly stated in the Act’s own list of what an application must contain.

Second, the wording applies to every application under Section 7(8) as a whole, without distinguishing between the different legal bases under which an ancestor may have acquired Czechoslovak citizenship under the 1920 Constitutional Act. The obligation to provide the evidence rests with the applicant.

What the file has to establish

Three things, each taken from the Act:

1. that you descend from the ancestor through an unbroken line, no further back than a great-grandparent;
2. that the ancestor was born in the territory of what is now Slovakia;
3. that the ancestor was a Czechoslovak citizen, supported by a document or record submitted with the application.

Documents issued abroad need an apostille, or full legalization where the country is not a party to the Apostille Convention, and a translation into Slovak by a translator registered with the Slovak Ministry of Justice. The application is filed in person at a Slovak embassy or consulate, or at a district office in a regional capital in Slovakia. For an applicant who has never resided in Slovakia, the competent district office is in Bratislava.

For families whose ancestor was born in Slovakia and was still living there in the 1920s, the third point is usually a matter of locating the right records. For families whose ancestor left before 1918, it may be the central challenge of the entire case. The Act specifies what must be demonstrated, but it does not prescribe a single document that establishes the ancestor’s Czechoslovak citizenship.

That is why the first filing matters. A file that does not demonstrate the ancestor’s Czechoslovak citizenship can end in a denial, and after a final denial, the Citizenship Act does not allow a new application for two years.

Other changes worth knowing

• Language exam. Section 7(1)(h) now refers to applicants under subsections 4 to 8, so moving the descent route to Section 7(8) did not take the exemption away.
• Proof of residence. Under Section 8(3)(e), a residence document is needed only where residence has to be shown at all. In a descent application, it no longer does.
• After the oath. Under Section 9a(1)(e), the Deed of Granting Citizenship serves as proof of Slovak citizenship for 90 days after it is handed to you. In practice, that is rarely enough time to arrange the other documents a Slovak passport application requires, so you will also need a Citizenship Certificate, which is valid for six months.
• Certificates through embassies. You can now request a Citizenship Certificate through a Slovak embassy or consulate electronically or by post. The embassy or consulate then processes the request electronically [Section 9a(2) and (13)].

How we prepare files

We have built our clients’ applications around establishing the ancestor’s Czechoslovak citizenship from the start, because in cases involving early emigration, this has always been a central obstacle. The amendment wrote into the Act what our applications were already designed to answer. It has not changed our approach, and our clients’ applications have continued to be approved since the amendment took effect.

Each application is still assessed on its own evidence, and a decision in someone else’s case is no substitute for what yours has to contain. If you are weighing whether to apply on your own, we explain our approach to working with clients in a separate article.

Where the 2025 landmark case fits

The amendment took effect after the Minister’s decision of June 24, 2025, in our client’s landmark case, which changed the Ministry’s practice on ancestors who emigrated before 1908/1910 and naturalized in the U.S. before 1918. What the new duty means for families who would rely on that decision is the subject of a separate commentary.

If you are preparing an application

If your parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent was born in what is now Slovakia, the route is open under the same conditions as before, and without a residence permit. What your application has to show is now written into the Act. For some families, that means locating the relevant historical records. For others, it is the whole case. Our record stands at 285+ approvals, and none of our applications have ended in a denial.

Submit your case for review. The complimentary case review is confidential. You can expect to hear from us within three business days.

General information on Slovak citizenship law, current as of publication. Not legal advice, and not a substitute for advice on your own circumstances. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.
This topic is also addressed in an article published by The Slovak Spectator — Slovakia’s leading English-language newspaper — authored by our Managing Partner, Ján Falath.