The 2020 Albanian Citizenship Law Explained: Who Qualifies

The law most of the diaspora hasn’t read

In 2020, Albania quietly rewrote the rules for who counts as Albanian — and most of the diaspora still operates under the old assumptions. Conversations at family dinners, on Albanian community Facebook groups, and even with some immigration attorneys still reference the pre-2020 rules: “you have to renounce your other citizenship,” “only your parent can transmit it,” “you have to live in Albania first.” None of those are true anymore.

Law No. 113/2020 — the Albanian Citizenship Law — replaced the 1998 statute and is now the controlling law on who can become an Albanian citizen, how they do it, and what counts as proof. Two rounds of amendments in 2023 and 2024 added further refinements. This article is the plain-English version of what the law says, who it covers, and where the practical traps still live.

What the 2020 Law changed

Five substantive shifts vs the prior law:

1. Descent eligibility extended to three generations. Previously, descent claims were practically capped at parent and grandparent in most enforcement scenarios. Article 6 of the 2020 Law explicitly states “up to the third degree” — parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent.
2. No renunciation required for descent applicants. The old law had practical pressures toward renouncing other citizenships. Article 7 of the 2020 Law removes that requirement entirely for descent claims.
3. Dual citizenship explicitly permitted with no restrictions. The 2020 Law does not condition dual nationality on bilateral treaties or any reciprocity test.
4. Residency requirement waived for diaspora. Naturalization applicants still need 7 years of legal residence. Descent and ethnic-origin applicants are exempt.
5. Streamlined procedure for diaspora applicants. The 2024 amendments simplified passport issuance and exempted qualified diaspora applicants from the language and history examination.

The three pathways to citizenship

Law 113/2020 recognizes three primary pathways. Most Albanian Americans qualify under exactly one of them; very few qualify under more than one.

Pathway 1 — Descent (Article 6)

The descent path is the one most US-based readers will use. The plain-English test:

• Are you a direct lineal descendant of someone who was an Albanian citizen at the time of their birth, OR who was ethnically Albanian by origin?
• Is that ancestor your parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent?
• Can you document the chain of descent with civil status records (birth certificates, marriage certificates where name changes occurred, naturalization records where applicable)?

If yes to all three, you qualify under Article 6.

The law uses “Albanian descent” rather than “Albanian citizen” — meaning ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Greek Çamëria are covered, even though those territories were not part of the modern Republic of Albania. This is the diaspora-inclusive language that makes the 2020 Law meaningfully broader than its predecessor.

Pathway 2 — Marriage (Article 9)

If you marry an Albanian citizen, you can apply for citizenship after 3 years of marriage and legal residence in Albania. This is significantly faster than the standard 7-year naturalization track but still requires physical residence — most US-based spouses don’t qualify in practice unless they’ve moved to Albania.

The 2024 amendments exempted family-reunification applicants from the language and history test, which made the marriage path more accessible for those who do live in Albania with an Albanian spouse.

Pathway 3 — Naturalization (Article 8)

The general naturalization track requires:

• 7 years of legal residence in Albania
• Stable income or means of support
• Suitable housing
• Albanian language proficiency (test required, with exemptions noted below)
• No serious criminal record
• A demonstrated relationship with Albania (the law leaves this discretionary)

This is the longest path and is rarely how Albanian Americans become citizens, since descent applicants can skip it entirely.

The 2024 amendments — what’s new

The amendments approved on July 26, 2024 introduced several changes that especially benefit the diaspora:

• Language and history test exemptions for: applicants from countries where Albanian is an official language (i.e., Kosovo, North Macedonia in some regions); spouses of Albanian citizens applying via family reunification; and parents of Albanian-citizen minor children applying via family reunification.
• Automatic citizenship for children born in Albania to parents with long-term legal residence, with parental consent.
• National-interest minor citizenship — a minor can be granted Albanian citizenship for reasons of national interest in education, science, art, culture, economy, or sports, with parental consent (and the minor’s own consent at age 14+).
• Improved judicial recourse — applicants can appeal to the administrative court of first instance in Tirana on citizenship decisions.
• Civil status registration for children of parents with international protection, enabling their access to citizenship.

A second amendment cycle in 2025 introduced a new “for state interest” track allowing the Albanian government to grant citizenship to specific individuals — typically prominent figures of Albanian descent or significant contributors to Albanian society. This is a discretionary, narrow path; it does not affect typical descent applicants.

Six concrete examples — who qualifies

To make Article 6 less abstract, here are six real-world examples we see frequently in the Albanian American community:

1. Maria, born in Detroit in 1985, whose grandmother was born in Korçë in 1940 and emigrated in 1956. Qualifies under Article 6 via grandparent. Documents needed: Maria’s US birth certificate, her parent’s US birth certificate, her grandmother’s Albanian certifikatë lindjeje from Korçë.

2. James, born in New York in 1992, whose mother emigrated from Tirana in 1991 and naturalized as a US citizen in 1999. Qualifies under Article 6 via parent. James’s mother is automatically still an Albanian citizen by birth (Albania did not strip citizenship from emigrants who naturalized abroad after 1992). James qualifies whether or not she has actively maintained her Albanian status.

3. Adrian, born in Boston in 1988, whose great-grandfather was born in Gjirokastër in 1898 and emigrated to the US in 1920. Qualifies under Article 6 via great-grandparent — the third-generation cap is the limit, but it does cover this case. Documents will be older and harder to source but typically still findable in Gjirokastër’s municipal archives.

4. Lulzim, born in Pristina, Kosovo in 1980, naturalized US citizen since 2010. Qualifies under Article 6 as a person of Albanian ethnic descent, even though he was never an Albanian citizen. His Kosovo birth certificate combined with his ethnically Albanian parentage establishes the link.

5. Hannah, born in Charlotte in 1995, whose father was born in Skopje, North Macedonia in 1965 and is ethnically Albanian. Qualifies under Article 6 via her father’s Albanian ethnic descent. The chain of documents includes the father’s Macedonian birth certificate and any documents establishing Albanian ethnic identity (often a family civil status record from a predominantly Albanian municipality in North Macedonia).

6. Theresa, born in Tampa in 1990, whose mother is American but whose grandfather was born in Vlorë in 1930. Qualifies under Article 6 via grandparent. The fact that her mother (the linking generation) is not herself Albanian by descent is irrelevant — what matters is the unbroken chain of birth certificates from Theresa back to the Albanian-born grandfather.

Three examples of who does not qualify under descent

1. Mark, born in Chicago in 1980, whose great-great-grandparents were born in Albania. Does not qualify under descent — fourth generation is beyond the third-generation cap of Article 6. Mark would need to apply through naturalization (7 years in Albania) or hope for a future amendment that extends the cap.

2. Sarah, born in Atlanta in 1995, married to an Albanian-American (US-born) husband. Does not qualify by marriage to a US citizen of Albanian descent — the marriage path requires marriage to an Albanian citizen, not just someone of Albanian descent. If her husband first acquires Albanian citizenship under Article 6, then her path opens, but only after 3 years of marriage and residence in Albania.

3. David, born in San Francisco in 1985, whose family is from Bosnia and identifies as Bosniak (not Albanian). Does not qualify under descent. The law requires Albanian descent specifically. Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, or other South Slavic ethnicities do not satisfy Article 6.

Dual citizenship — what the law says

Article 7 of Law 113/2020 explicitly permits multiple citizenship without restriction. This was already the practical reality before 2020 but is now codified in primary law. Important consequences:

• You do not need to renounce US (or any other) citizenship to become Albanian.
• Your existing US obligations — military service if drafted, tax filing — are unaffected by acquiring Albanian citizenship.
• Albania does not impose a “primary citizenship” test the way some countries do; you remain fully Albanian even if your day-to-day life is in the US.
• The US generally allows dual citizenship as well; the State Department has explicitly recognized that US citizens may possess foreign citizenship without losing US status.

The one practical caveat: under the US Master Nationality Rule, when you are physically in Albania, the Albanian government treats you as exclusively Albanian for diplomatic and legal purposes. You cannot, for example, ask for US consular assistance in Albania for an issue involving Albanian law enforcement of Albanian citizens.

What “Albanian descent” means legally

The most consequential interpretive choice in the 2020 Law is the phrase “i prejardhjes shqiptare” — “of Albanian descent.” This is broader than “Albanian citizen” or “born in Albania.” In practice, the Ministry of Interior interprets it to include:

• People born within the modern Republic of Albania
• Ethnic Albanians from Kosovo (regardless of when Kosovo’s independence is dated)
• Ethnic Albanians from North Macedonia
• Ethnic Albanians from Montenegro
• Çams (ethnic Albanians from Greek Çamëria, displaced during and after WWII)
• Arvanites (descendants of medieval Albanian migrations to Greece) — recognition exists but is more discretionary
• Arbëreshë (Italian-Albanian communities in southern Italy) — same

Documentation requirements vary slightly by community, but the core test is the same: produce civil status records linking you, generation by generation, to an ancestor who is recognized as ethnically Albanian.

Why this matters for the Albanian American diaspora

Three practical implications most Albanian Americans haven’t fully internalized:

1. You probably qualify. If your family came from anywhere in the historically Albanian-populated regions of the Balkans within the last three generations, the path is open. The 2020 Law was written with the diaspora in mind.
2. Your children automatically qualify through you. Once you are an Albanian citizen, your minor children are eligible for Albanian citizenship through you under Article 5, with parental consent. There is no separate decade-long process for them.
3. Citizenship is a leverage tool. Beyond the personal value of dual identity, the size and citizenship status of the diaspora is a political resource. The more Albanians in the US who hold Albanian passports and can vote in Albanian elections, the more weight the diaspora carries in Tirana — and the more weight the Albanian American community carries with US politicians who want diaspora votes.

What still needs to change

Three honest critiques of the 2020 Law from a diaspora-utility perspective:

• The third-generation cap is arbitrary. Many fourth- and fifth-generation Albanian Americans maintain real cultural connection but have no path under the current law. Most peer countries (Italy, Ireland, Israel, Germany) have looser generational limits.
• Consular processing capacity is the real bottleneck. The DC Embassy and New York consulate are under-staffed for the demand. A US-side application sometimes waits weeks for an appointment slot before it even enters the official 6-month timeline.
• Document costs add up. While the application fee is €30, the realistic out-of-pocket costs for a US applicant — apostilles, translations, FBI check — typically run $500–$1,300. That is a meaningful barrier for some families.

These are areas where diaspora advocacy could push for further reform.

You belong on the count

The National Albanian Registry counts Albanian Americans by self-identification — without requiring you to claim citizenship or prove anything. Whether you ever apply for an Albanian passport, whether your great-grandparent’s records are findable, whether you’ve thought about any of this until five minutes ago: if you self-identify as Albanian by birth, descent, or ethnicity, you belong on the registry.

The U.S. Census records about 224,000 Albanian Americans. The real number, including ethnic Albanians from across the Balkans and second- and third-generation Albanian Americans, is closer to a million. Counting ourselves is the first step toward acting like the community we already are.

Registration takes 60 seconds. It is free. It is private. It produces a permanent digital Certificate of Albanian Heritage.

Be counted →

Sources: Law No. 113/2020 — full text (English) at GLOBALCIT, Albania: Law No. 113/2020 on Citizenship — Refworld, JBC & Associates — 2024 amendments, Albanian nationality law — Wikipedia, Securing Rights and Futures: Albania strengthens legislation — UN Albania. General information, not legal advice. Verify current law and procedure with the Albanian consulate or a licensed Albanian attorney before relying on it for an application.