Ukrainian citizenship

Ukrainian citizenship is the status of a person recognized under Constitution as being a legal member of Ukraine. Ukrainian Citizenship Law has been adopted after parliament election on 26 July 1990 together with Declaration of State Sovereignty.

Citizens of Ukraine are in at least one of the following categories:

The citizenship of Ukraine may be acquired in one of the following ways:

Birth within the territory of Ukraine does not automatically confer citizenship.

Ukraine’s citizenship laws in force do not provide for the procedure of renunciation of Ukraine’s citizenship, therefore obtaining of foreign citizenship by a citizen of Ukraine on the grounds of his renunciation of Ukraine’s citizenship cannot be considered a legal ground for termination of the citizenship of Ukraine. This can create problems, for instance, for Ukrainian nationals looking to acquire Japanese or Mainland Chinese citizenship, since neither East Asian country generally permits its nationals to retain their foreign citizenship.

The decision on involuntary termination of Ukrainian citizenship must be taken by the President of Ukraine.

Ukrainian law currently does not recognise dual citizenship. However, there are citizens of Ukraine who hold dual citizenship. Ukrainian law states that (after gaining Ukrainian citizenship) the new Ukrainian citizen must renounce its non-Ukrainian citizenship(s) within two years. A 2009 estimate put the number of Ukrainians with more than one passport from 300,000 to a few million. Within Ukrainian boundaries Ukrainian citizens who also hold multiple citizenships are considered to be solely Ukrainian citizens.

On February 8, 2014, the Verkhovna Rada proposed a bill to criminalize the act of holding two citizenships.

In February 2016, Ukrainian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 81 countries and territories, ranking the Ukrainian passport 58th in the world (tied with Ecuador and Fiji) according to the Visa Restrictions Index.

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Wikipedia