Eligibility Quiz
Documents Required
Core Documentation
You must gather original documents or notarized copies for yourself and all ancestors in the chain. Organize these as follows:
Identity and family documents:
- Your long-form birth certificate (listing both parents)
- Your parents' marriage certificate
- Your mother's birth certificate
- Your current passport or identity card (copy with photo)
Proof of your mother's German citizenship:
- Her German passport, or
- Her naturalization records (if she naturalized in another country), or
- Her parents' German citizenship documents (birth certificates, passports, naturalization records)
Critical note: A German birth certificate alone is insufficient to prove your mother's citizenship. You must provide additional evidence.
Your mother's naturalization records (if applicable):
- If your mother naturalized in another country, the date of naturalization is critical to establish whether she was still German at your birth.
Criminal background certificate:
- From your country of residence, national in scope, not older than six months. For U.S. applicants, this means an FBI background check.
Special Documents (If Applicable)
- Adoption decrees, paternity acknowledgments, or court orders
- Divorce or separation decrees
- Legitimization documents
Apostille and Translation Requirements
Original documents must be certified at a German consulate or by an honorary consul. Honorary consuls often have faster availability than main consulates.
Documents in foreign languages must be translated into German by a certified translator. There is no governmental fee for document certification as part of the application because it corrects discrimination affecting earlier generations.
Obtaining Documents from Archives
Obtaining birth, marriage, and naturalization records from German and foreign archives routinely takes 12 to 18 months. For U.S. applicants, naturalization records are available from USCIS (post-1906) and the National Archives (pre-1906) via FOIA request. German registry offices and Registry Office I in Berlin issue historical documents, with processing times ranging from weeks to many months.