Acquiring the Luxembourgish nationality can offer numerous benefits and provide a sense of belonging and identity, buy many colleagues are also concerned about the consequences it would have for their expatriation allowance (16%) or foreign residence allowance (4%).
How to proceed
If you would like to acquire the Luxembourgish nationality by naturalisation, you must provide proof of your knowledge of the Luxembourgish language evaluation test (oral expression and listening comprehension) and the fundamental rights of citizens, Luxembourg’s state and local institutions, as well as its history and European integration by the ‘Vivre ensemble au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg’ certificate.
If you are residing in Luxembourg for at least 20 years, of which the past 12 months were uninterrupted, you can instead opt for Luxembourg nationality by providing proof of participation in a Luxembourg language course of 24 hours.
You can find all the prerequisites for acquiring the Luxembourg nationality in the dedicated information page.
What are the implications?
It all depends on your private situation.
If you are a Belgian citizen and apply voluntarily and acquire a Luxembourgish citizenship, you might lose your Belgian nationality. Other countries also have similar rules, and as this is a complex legal area and renouncing a nationality is a serious and often irreversible decision, it is essential, before starting the procedure, to check the rules of your current country of citizenship regarding loss of nationality.
Expatriation allowance in Luxembourg and Luxembourgish nationality
A non-Luxembourg Commission staff member working in Luxembourg who acquires the Luxembourgish nationality may or may not lose the 16% expatriation allowance. It is, however, certain that a non-Luxembourgish Commission staff member entitled to the 4% foreign residence allowance will lose this entitlement. This loss of the right for the expatriation allowance or foreign residence allowance will take effect on the 1st of the following month after the acquisition of the Luxembourg nationality.
However, the expatriation allowance might be kept if the staff member is acquiring the Luxembourg nationality and he/she can prove that he/she had not lived in Luxembourg within the last 10 years before taking up the appointment in the EU Institution.
It must be noted that any period of absence from that country for reasons like working for another country or for an international organization is not taken into consideration for calculating the 10-year period and should be deducted.
If I acquire a new nationality, how should I inform my employer?
Please provide the original or a certified copy of your national passport or ID card, as well as a recent equivalent official document (i.e. foreign birth certificate) or a nationality certificate containing the official decision and date of acquisition to the ‘new’ nationality to the Expat Administrative Support office in DRB B2/99A. They will update the nationality in Sysper and will notify the PMO services.
Acquiring a new nationality may have consequences for your financial entitlement, when this is the nationality of the country of your place of employment. Upon information on the acquisition of citizenship, the Administration is indeed obliged to re-examine the individual situation of the staff member at that moment in the same way as when entering the service. We strongly advise you to notify the Appointing Authority as soon as possible upon acquiring new citizenship, when this is the nationality of the country of your place of employment. This information is usually public, and the administration may check it at any time. Beware that any potential change of financial entitlement will be effective as of the date of the acquisition of the new nationality and not as of the date of the notification.
Some concrete examples when the expat allowance was kept:
- A British colleague, whose place of recruitment was the United Kingdom and who had not lived in Luxembourg within 10 years before recruitment and obtains the Luxembourgish nationality.
- A Polish colleague, who decides to take a position in the Commission Representation in Warsaw and who had not lived in Poland within 10 years before being recruited to the COM working for a private company.
Some concrete examples where the expat allowance was lost:
- A German colleague, whose place of recruitment was Germany and before being recruited by the COM, had lived in Luxembourg for even a short period of time (in most of the cases periods for studies, internships or work in an international organization do not count) within 10 years and obtains the Luxembourgish nationality.
- A Hungarian colleague, whose place of recruitment was Hungary decides to go to the Commission Representation in Budapest. He/she will lose the expat allowance for the period of the assignment.
The loss of the expatriation allowance is not permanent as it depends always on the place of assignment which might change during your career in the Commission.
If you are not sure whether you can keep your expatriation allowance or not and before you take a definite decision on changing your place of assignment you can always ask PMO contact for an individual analysis or introduce a request based on article 90(1) on your specific case!
We kindly ask you to share your individual experiences with us!
