The rules, plainly
Your right to Lithuanian citizenship is not a favor the state grants. It is a right the law recognizes, because it was never validly taken away. Here is exactly how that works.
Lithuania distinguishes between acquiring citizenship and reinstating it. Naturalization is for newcomers, and it comes with a language exam, a constitution test, a residency period, and an oath. Reinstatement (in Lithuanian, atkūrimas) is different. It recognizes a citizenship that already existed in your family and was interrupted by occupation and exile, not surrendered. Because it is recognition of a pre-existing right, none of the naturalization requirements apply: no language test, no exam, no oath, no residency.
The route is set out in the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania (No. XI-1196, adopted 2 December 2010, in force 1 April 2011). It gives the right of reinstatement to people who were citizens of the Republic of Lithuania before 15 June 1940, and to their descendants. The right is indefinite, it does not expire, and citizenship can be reinstated only once. It reaches three generations: children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
Lithuania was an independent republic from 16 February 1918 until the Soviet occupation on 15 June 1940. The law looks at whether your ancestor was a citizen of that republic before 15 June 1940. It then looks at how your family left: those who left, or were exiled or deported, before 11 March 1990, the day Lithuania declared the restoration of its independence, are the people the law was written to bring home. The one path it excludes is leaving for the territory of the former Soviet Union after June 1940.
Lithuania generally asks citizens to hold only one citizenship. But the Law on Citizenship sets out specific categories who may hold two, and people who left before 11 March 1990, along with their descendants, are inside it. That is why you keep your US passport. A 2024 national referendum tried to widen dual citizenship for everyone and fell short of the approval threshold it needed, but it changed nothing here. This category was already law, and it remains law.
Hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians left before the war for America, and tens of thousands more were exiled and deported by the Soviet and Nazi regimes. The reinstatement law is Lithuania's recognition that their citizenship, and their descendants' claim to it, survived the occupation. When we reinstate your citizenship, we are completing something history interrupted.
Reading the law is one thing; reading yourcase against it is another. Tell us which ancestor was Lithuanian and how the line runs down to you, and we'll tell you straight whether reinstatement reaches you, within two business days.
Check my eligibility →Information current as of June 2026. We update this guidance when the rules change.