How to report dual citizenship. Law on dual citizenship

In the world there are about 200 states. Legislation in many countries allows citizens to have foreign passports (or residence permits). Russia is one of them. Until recently, the bureaucracy with regard to Russian citizens with a foreign passport or residence permit was virtually non-existent.

Many citizens have heard about dual citizenship in Russia. Some willingly took the opportunity to become a subject of a foreign power. It was not necessary to inform you that you have the citizenship of another country. But now the situation has changed. About the fact that there is a dual citizenship, now it is necessary to notify the FMS of Russia. Otherwise, a large fine or corrective work is threatened. How to report dual citizenship? In what cases are provided for the relaxation of the norms of the law?

What is this law?

In the summer of 2014, the Russian president signed a law, according to which Russians who concealed the fact of having dual citizenship may be prosecuted. In order not to fall under this criterion, residents of the Russian Federation, in the presence of a passport (or residence permit) of another country, must notify the Federal Migration Service before October 4, 2014.

If this requirement is not met, the authorities will impose a fine, the maximum amount of which can reach 200 thousand rubles. (Or they will be given correctional labor, up to 400 hours). This is the new law of Russia on dual citizenship.

Presidential Initiative

Consider the most important nuance associated with the authorship of the initiative, according to which the FMS tightened immigration policy. Who invented such a strict law of the Russian Federation on dual citizenship? According to observations of experts, the president of Russia personally initiated the act. He voiced the idea: the citizens of the Russian Federation are obliged to let the authorities know about the presence of citizenship in relation to other countries at a meeting with senators in the Federation Council.

Nuances

The RF law on dual citizenship contains a rule: if a Russian resident does not yet have the passport of another state, but he is going to receive it, the FMS will need to be notified within 60 days after the execution of the foreign document.

Similarly, the FMS should be notified if the passport (or residence permit) of another country is available to children whose parents are Russian citizens. For minors there is a special form.

A responsibility

In the act signed by the President of Russia, it is said that a fine of 200 thousand rubles. - this is the maximum that threatens a citizen who has not carried out the necessary procedures with regard to cooperation with the FMS. What are the levels of responsibility prescribed in the law? What happens if the notification of the dual citizenship of the FMS is not sent?

Experts assure that such a fine will be issued only if the Federal Migration Service proves the intentional evasion of a citizen from a notification of the presence of a passport of another country. If a person, for example, does not meet the deadline set by law (before October 4), then everything that threatens him is an administrative fine of 500 or 1000 rubles. Likewise, a monetary penalty will be imposed if a citizen provides an incomplete set of documents to the FMS, or there are significant mistakes in the application, or inaccurate information is found.

Delays

The new law allows for a number of fairly reasonable indulgences. For example, Russians who before October 4 will be abroad (or reside there permanently) can not notify the FMS about the fact of having a passport of another country prior to their arrival at home. This is logical, because foreign document delivery services are not empowered to accept the application for dual citizenship in the same way as the Russian Post can.

Some experts assure that the law does not apply to Russians who have citizenship of countries with which the Russian Federation has concluded special international treaties. In particular, such states include Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Some provisions of the law are contained in relation to the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, for these regions of the country the norms will come into force in 2016.

We inform you about citizenship in the Federal Migration Service

How can I report dual citizenship so that the Federal Migration Service has no doubts about law-abiding? Notify the FMS of the existence of a second nationality can be in one of two ways. The fastest is a personal appearance in the territorial structure of the department at the place of residence or actual residence. The address of the desired unit can be found on the website of the department. Having come to the office of the Federal Migration Service, the Russian must leave a written application (or, if officially, a notice of dual citizenship, the form of which will be issued by the employees). By the way, there are two such papers: the first for adults, the second for those who do not yet have 18. The application must be accompanied by a photocopy of the passport of the Russian Federation and a similar document issued by another state. Translation into Russian (and notarization of it) does not need to be done.

We inform you about citizenship through the Post of Russia

How can I report dual citizenship if I do not have the opportunity to visit the office of the Federal Migration Service? The second way is to send a similar package of documents via the Post of Russia. Work in this direction department began a few days after the entry into force of the new law.

You can send documents to the FMS at any post office. As in the case of the first method of sending information, a package of papers includes a notice of dual citizenship (form Can be downloaded from the Federal Migration Service website). Employees of this organization are obliged to check whether the application is filled out correctly, whether all the necessary documents are attached to it. After verification, a citizen's notice of the fact of having dual citizenship is sent to the FMS by letter. In many post offices, applicants are given a special "track number" that can track how a double citizenship notice is delivered.

Important nuance

In both cases, it is important to obtain confirmation that the papers have been accepted. In the case of filing an application with a personal appearance in the FMS, the agency employee must certify the citizen's documents with a signature and give him the "counterfoil" of the form. If the application is submitted by mail, a similar procedure is made by the employee receiving the letter, but does not put a signature, but a seal or an impression.

The law in South Ossetia

The question becomes urgent: "Should residents of countries whose diplomatic status is recognized only by Russia be sent to the FMS by a notification of dual citizenship?" For example South Ossetia?

Experts assure, even if the sovereign status of a state is recognized by the Russian Federation and no one else, Russians who have a passport of this country are required to report to the FMS, as if this citizenship was French or, for example, American. The law on dual citizenship does not contain any explanations regarding the diplomatic recognition of foreign states. Thus, residents of South Ossetia, who have an internal passport and at the same time Russian, must, in case of permanent residence in the Russian Federation, properly notify the Federal Migration Service of the existence of dual citizenship.

It is possible that a resident of the Republic of South Ossetia owns only a Russian passport, and internal - no. Then there is no need to give any notifications to the FMS. The question of how to report on dual citizenship, will not face the inhabitants of this young state.

The issue of dual citizenship: foreign experience

Migration laws are different for all states. Attitude to dual citizenship, too. Even in European countries, where, it would seem, many laws are uniform, there is no general approach to this issue. Some countries treat dual citizenship positively, others are neutral or even sharply negative. Undoubtedly, depending on the political situation in the regulation of migration processes, accents may change. The governments of European countries have the right to issue new laws to address specific tasks, including dual citizenship.

Experts say that a harsh punishment for the fact of concealing foreign nationality abroad is a rare phenomenon in the world. This can be explained, in particular, by the fact that modern technologies used by migration authorities make it quite easy to identify citizens who have a passport from another country. An example of a state where regulation is rather rigid is India. In this country, dual citizenship is prohibited. And if a person who has a national passport crosses the border according to the document of another country, then a large fine is waiting for him, and with a systematic manifestation of such actions, a prison term. Similar in severity rules apply, for example, in Singapore.

And what is "dual citizenship"?

The legislation of the Russian Federation defines dual citizenship as a fact of citizenship of a Russian with respect to at least one foreign state. The Constitution of the country direct text refers to the right to have such a status.

It says that Russians can be citizens of foreign states on the grounds set out in federal laws or international acts signed by the Russian Federation.

What are the characteristics of this status? The laws of Russia state that the presence of the citizenship of another country does not in the least diminish those rights and freedoms (and at the same time, duties) that arise on the basis of Russian citizenship. Exceptions should be spelled out in federal and international acts.

In Russia, there are two main statuses that legally reflect dual citizenship.

1. The situation in which a residence permit or a passport of another country is formalized in accordance with a special international agreement (above we have cited the example of two states with which the Russian Federation has signed such a treaty - Turkmenistan and Tajikistan).
2. The situation in which a Russian citizen obtained the citizenship of another country (one or several), when the Russian Federation did not take part in this process.

Lawyers note that in practice, the procedure for the registration of citizenship of citizens of Russia in relation to other states can occur in other statuses.

Federal migration legislation

A number of formulations of special legislation should also be taken into account. A lot of interesting information is contained in the Federal Law "On Citizenship of the Russian Federation". It says, for example, that Russians who have a passport or residence permit of another country are treated solely as citizens of the Russian Federation (again, unless otherwise stipulated by international agreements). The Federal Law contains the most important wording. The essence of it is that the acquisition by a citizen of the Russian Federation of the passport of another country does not nullify Russian citizenship. There is also no law in this law that would presuppose the need for Russian citizens to renounce their citizenship.

How to legally enter and leave with two passports?

Reasonable question: "How is the procedure for crossing the border of the Russian Federation in relation to persons with dual citizenship regulated?" To answer this question, we turn to the Federal Law "On the procedure for leaving the Russian Federation". It says that citizens of Russia enter their homeland on documents issued by the Russian authorities (on a regular or foreign passport).

In addition, the law provides for the option of allowing entry into the territory of the Russian Federation under the certificate issued by foreign diplomatic departments. This usually happens if a person loses his / her passport.

In turn, the order of entry into the territory of countries, citizens of which the Russian is in the order of dual citizenship, is determined by local laws. In general, they contain norms similar or identical to those in Russia. Meanwhile, when registering passengers for a flight to a foreign country, airlines can ask for a document whereby a Russian citizen can be guaranteed to enter the territory of another country. And this is highly likely not to be a Russian passport. Therefore, when passing procedures related to check-in for a flight and the passage of customs at home and abroad, it is better for a Russian citizen to have both passports with him.

Constitutional freedom

Thus, in the Constitution of the Russian Federation there are no points that clearly prohibit residents of the country from being subjects of other states, there are no laws that would somehow restrict the right of Russians to have dual citizenship. There are special agreements regulating migration processes (as in the case of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan). And this rather liberal regime from the point of view of the law, experts believe, predetermined the emergence of a large number of citizens in Russia, whose status in terms of dual citizenship is not fixed in the registers of state agencies. It is with this that the fact that the FMS does not know how many Russians have overseas citizenship can be connected. It is likely that this state of affairs has become the reason for the emergence of a law on dual citizenship.