- Ways to apply
- Emigrants and their children (Art. 8)
- Dual citizenship
- Kept, however you apply
Each answer assumes none of your ancestors became a citizen of another country before their child was born. Below is what changes each answer.
On this page›
- 01Who qualifies
- 02Dates that matter
- 03Through your mother
- 04Keeping your citizenship
- 05Ways to apply
- 06The documents
- 07What it takes
- 08Where the records live
- 09Places that changed countries
- 10Law changes
- 11Other options
- 12Sources
Who qualifies, generation by generation
POSSIBLE
Can you claim Macedonian citizenship through a parent?
Emigrants and their children (Art. 8)
A child of an emigrant from today’s North Macedonia can be naturalised without living there or passing the language test, and keep their other citizenship; the other conditions, including secured housing and means, still apply.
What would settle itWhether the ministry accepts your housing and means, which the emigrant option does not waive; the grant is discretionary.
- An emigrant, meaning a citizen who emigrated from North Macedonia, and their descendant to the first degree may be naturalised without the residence, language and renunciation conditions of Art. 7(1) points 2, 6 and 10. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 8 ↗
- A citizen may hold the citizenship of another state. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 2 ↗
- The other naturalisation conditions are not waived: age 18, secured housing and a permanent source of means, no security objection, and the oath. The waiver of the language test is in the consolidated text as amended to 2021 (Official Gazette 174/21); older consolidations number this article 11 and waive only residence and renunciation. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 7(1)(1), (3), (8), (9) ↗
What changes the answer
UNLIKELY
Can you claim Macedonian citizenship through a grandparent?
Children of emigrants only
The emigrant option reaches only the children of emigrants. If your parent naturalises first, you become the child of a citizen.
What would settle itWhether a living parent, as the child of the emigrant, can naturalise first.
UNLIKELY
Can you claim Macedonian citizenship through a great-grandparent?
Children of emigrants only
The emigrant option reaches only the children of emigrants. If your parent naturalises first, you become the child of a citizen.
What would settle itWhether a living parent, as the child of the emigrant, can naturalise first.
The dates that matter
No date named in North Macedonia’s rule decides who qualifies. The answers above turn on the family’s facts, not on when anyone was born or left.
Claiming through your mother or grandmother
North Macedonia’s rule gives the same answer whether the line runs through a mother or a father.
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.
Every way to apply, and the law behind it
The law
- An emigrant, meaning a citizen who emigrated from North Macedonia, and their descendant to the first degree may be naturalised without the residence, language and renunciation conditions of Art. 7(1) points 2, 6 and 10. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 8 ↗
- A citizen may hold the citizenship of another state. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 2 ↗
- The other naturalisation conditions are not waived: age 18, secured housing and a permanent source of means, no security objection, and the oath. The waiver of the language test is in the consolidated text as amended to 2021 (Official Gazette 174/21); older consolidations number this article 11 and waive only residence and renunciation. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 7(1)(1), (3), (8), (9) ↗
- The applicant must not have been sentenced, in North Macedonia or their own country, to a year or more in prison for an offence prosecuted ex officio, and must face no criminal proceedings. Law on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7, Art. 7(1)(4)-(5) ↗
What would settle an unsure case
- Whether the ministry accepts your housing and means, which the emigrant option does not waive; the grant is discretionary.
- UNLIKELY
Through a grandparentThe emigrant option reaches only the children of emigrants. If your parent naturalises first, you become the child of a citizen.
The law
What would settle an unsure case
- Whether a living parent, as the child of the emigrant, can naturalise first.
The documents, as the rule lists them
Emigrants and their children (Art. 8)
Through a parent
- Your parent’s birth or baptismal record from a place in today’s North Macedonia
- Evidence they emigrated
- Your birth certificate
- A clean criminal record
- Evidence of housing and means
Most countries also want proof that your ancestor didn’t become a citizen somewhere else before their child was born: the naturalization record with its date, or a letter saying there isn’t one.
What it takes: time, cost, the hard part, who decides
Emigrants and their children (Art. 8)
- Time
- 6–12 months for the naturalisation decision.
- Cost
- About $300–700: certified copies, apostilles and translations into Macedonian.
- The hard part
- This option reaches only children of an emigrant, not grandchildren directly — proving your parent’s birth in today’s North Macedonia and that they emigrated is the case.
- Who decides
- The Ministry of Interior, through the Macedonian embassy or a consulate.
- The first record
- Your parent’s birth or baptismal record from a place in today’s North Macedonia, from The matičar (registrar) of the municipality, or the State Archive of North Macedonia. Write to the municipality’s registry office with the name and approximate date; for older records, the State Archive in Skopje holds church and civil registers. arhiv.gov.mk ↗
How it’s filed
- Where
- In person at the Embassy of North Macedonia, 2129 Wyoming Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20008; the Consulate General in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey (100 Challenger Road, Suite 112); the Consulate General in Southfield, Michigan (2000 Town Center, Suite 1130); or the Consulate General in Chicago (33 N Dearborn Street, Suite 802, Chicago, IL 60602). The ministry publishes no state-by-state split, so book with the nearest post. The post forwards the file to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
- How
- In person; you appear in person
- Fee
- About $114
- Decision
- 6–18 months
What goes in the file (11)›
- Application for admission to citizenship (Form 1-b), submitted personally
- Passport or identity card
- Biography
- Birth certificate from the U.S. register (and marriage certificate, if married)
- The emigrant parent’s birth-register extract from North Macedonia and proof they emigrated
- Proof of housing
- Proof of a steady means of subsistence
- Proof that no criminal proceedings are pending in the U.S.
- Proof of no prison sentence of a year or more in the U.S.
- Signed oath of loyalty
- Proof of the administrative fee
What goes wrong (6)›
- Not a descent registration: it is naturalisation under Art. 8 of the Law on Citizenship (consolidated through Official Gazette 67/2022), which waives the seven-year residence, the Macedonian language and the renunciation conditions of Art. 7. The rest still applies: age 18, housing and means, no prison sentence of a year or more and no pending prosecution in North Macedonia or the U.S., no residence ban, no security risk, and a signed oath.
- Reaches the emigrant and descendants to the first degree only (children). ‘Emigrant’ means a citizen of North Macedonia who moved to another country.
- The administrative fee is €20 for the procedure plus €80 when citizenship is granted, paid in denars.
- Dual citizenship is permitted (Art. 2).
- Posts’ emails: washington@mfa.gov.mk, cg.newyork@mfa.gov.mk, detroit@mfa.gov.mk, chicago@mfa.gov.mk.
- Citizenship takes effect the day the decision is handed over in person; a refusal can be challenged before the Administrative Court (Arts. 13 and 21).
source ↗
Fees are each office’s published fee, converted to U.S. dollars.
Where each record lives, and how to ask for it
birth1946–2026
Directorate for Keeping the Registry Books (Управа за водење на матичните книги, UVMK), with registry offices in each municipality
The registry office of the parent’s municipality of birth; UVMK in Skopje (Bul. Sv. Kiril i Metodij 54) runs the registers nationally and an e-portal.
- Ask
- Through an agent, in Macedonian
- Takes
- 1–9 weeks
Good to know (2)›
- The emigrant parent orders their own birth extract on the UVMK e-portal (paid by card; collected at the counter, sent by post or downloaded as an e-extract) or through a Macedonian embassy or consulate. Anyone else needs a power of attorney certified by a notary.
- A paper extract costs 200 denars tax plus 100 denars fee; an e-extract 100 plus 50. UVMK answers within 10 days.
source ↗
birth1850–1946
State Archives of North Macedonia (Државен архив) and its regional departments: church registers and pre-1946 civil records
Regional department of the State Archives covering the parent’s or grandparent’s town.
- Takes
- 1–9 weeks
Good to know (3)›
- Requests for deposited records are answered in 10 to 30 days. Orders are taken in person, by phone, fax, post or email when the record’s archive reference is known.
- A certified copy from a personal file is 300 denars (A4); a notice that the archive holds nothing is 200 denars. Fees are paid at a post office or bank, or by card at the archive.
- Only relevant for proving the emigrant parent’s own origin when the parent was born before 1946.
source ↗
citizenship
Ministry of Internal Affairs citizenship records (evidence of the parent’s Macedonian citizenship) and the municipal registry
- Ask
- Through an agent, in Macedonian
- Takes
- 2–13 weeks
source ↗
Translations
- Into
- Macedonian
- Who may translate
- Any certified translator
- About
- $20–$50 a page
U.S. certificates are apostilled and translated into Macedonian. For entry in the Macedonian birth register UVMK wants the translation certified by a notary in North Macedonia; international extracts under the 1976 Vienna Convention need no translation.
source ↗
The passport
- Where
- After the decision the member is entered in the Macedonian birth register (200 denars at UVMK: 100 tax, 50 fee, 50 request) and applies with the citizenship certificate and birth extract at the Chicago, New Jersey or Detroit consulate, where the Interior Ministry’s mobile passport unit sits three times a year. The fee is €30 for an adult (Tariff 133 of the Law on Administrative Fees).
- Fee
- About $34
- Time
- 1–5 months
source ↗
Places on old papers that lead to North Macedonia
If your family’s records name one of these, North Macedonia’s law may be the one that applies. The town decides.
- Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia split in the 1990s. Pick the country the town is in today.
Today: Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia
- Ottoman Empire · also Turkey (before 1923)
Pick the country the town is in today.
Today: Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia, Albania, Egypt
- Macedonia
North Macedonia, or Greek Macedonia.
Today: North Macedonia, Greece
Recent and pending changes
We know of no pending bill or recent court ruling for North Macedonia.
We re-read the official pages behind this guide every day. When one changes, a person checks the rule before we update anything here.
If descent doesn’t reach you
4 residence programs lead to North Macedonia without an ancestor, each with its own law and road to citizenship.
Every source on this page
1 laws and official pages behind the answers, then the offices and pages behind the records and filing.
- LawLaw on Citizenship of the Republic of North Macedonia (consolidated text, Official Gazette), Art. 8 (emigrants and their descendants to the first degree) and Art. 7 · Art. 8; Art. 2; Art. 7(1)(1), (3), (8), (9); Art. 7(1)(4)-(5)
- RecordsThe matičar (registrar) of the municipality, or the State Archive of North Macedonia: Your parent’s birth or baptismal record from a place in today’s North Macedonia
- RecordsHow to file: Emigrants and their children (Art. 8)
- RecordsBirth records, 1946–2026: Directorate for Keeping the Registry Books
- RecordsUVMK e-portal (extracts for registered users)
- RecordsBirth records, 1850–1946: State Archives of North Macedonia
- RecordsTranslations into Macedonian
- RecordsThe passport: where, the fee and the wait
Not legal advice. Every answer comes from the country’s own laws and is tested against real cases. Where the law isn’t clear, we say “possible” rather than guess.