Hungarian citizenship through marriage

The fastest way to obtain Hungarian citizenship is if the foreigner has continuously resided in Hungary for the three years prior to the submission of the application for naturalization, has a clean criminal record and is not subject to criminal proceedings, and has been married to a Hungarian citizen for at least three years, or the marriage ended with the death of the spouse. If the marriage was concluded abroad, the marriage must also be registered in Hungary. We must underline that the stay must be continuous in Hungary. It should be emphasized that a simple, temporary residence permit is not enough for accepting the three-year period of staying in Hungary, but it’s required to have a settled or refugee status, or in the case of EU citizens, a valid registration certificate for 3 years. They also investigate whether the foreigner’s Hungarian livelihood and place of residence are guaranteed, and, unfortunately, the basic constitutional knowledge exam must also be taken in Hungarian.

Another case, for which it is not even necessary to live in Hungary, is when the foreign citizen has been married for ten years to a person who is a Hungarian citizen at the time of submitting the citizenship application. In such cases, they also investigate whether the foreigner has a clean criminal record, whether there are no pending criminal proceedings against him, and whether his naturalization does not violate Hungarian public security and public order. Applicants living abroad must attach a certificate of criminal innocence issued by the competent authority according to their place of residence abroad. There is one more unfortunate condition: in this type of procedure, it must be proven that the foreigner knows the Hungarian language. This is checked by the acting consul or administrator.

Of course, the devil is in the detail. Our office has been dealing with citizenship cases for more than a decade, so we can confidently say that this is absolutely the type of case whose judgment is very subjective on the part of the participating authorities and the Office of the President of the Republic, and moreover, there is no legal remedy against the decision made here. Therefore, in this procedure, it seems inevitable to have the representation of a legal expert who knows how the various deadlines are calculated, what written recommendations can be useful and how, what documents the authorities accept to verify the foreigner’s income situation, what language skills are expected, etc. We have hundreds of successful citizenship procedures behind us, so we sincerely believe that our law firm can provide valuable legal assistance to foreigners who come to us.