Blog · 2026-09-05

Repatriation to Latvia and Lithuania in 2026: who qualifies and what you actually get

Citizenship through pre-1940 ancestors, Latvian and Lithuanian roots, dual citizenship rules and the honest downsides for Russian and Belarusian nationals

The word repatriation is misleading when applied to Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia's Repatriation Law is effectively shut: no repatriate status has been granted since 1 January 2024, and the law itself expires on 1 July 2028. Lithuania never had a repatriation programme at all. What people actually mean by the term is citizenship by descent: registering or restoring citizenship through ancestors who were citizens before 1940, or through ethnic origin. Here is who qualifies for what in 2026, where the two countries differ in ways that matter, and why Russian and Belarusian nationals should assess their chances soberly before paying for the first archive search.

Three mechanisms that get confused

Both countries rely on the doctrine of state continuity: the 1940 occupation did not legally interrupt their existence, so the citizenship of pre-war citizens is deemed to have survived and passed to descendants.

• Restoration or registration of citizenship through ancestors. An ancestor was a citizen of Latvia on 17 June 1940 or of Lithuania before 15 June 1940. You prove the chain of descent and receive citizenship with no exam and no residence requirement.
• Citizenship through ethnic origin. Latvians and Livs in Latvia, persons of Lithuanian descent in Lithuania. The ancestor need not have been a citizen; ethnicity is what counts. The conditions are tougher: fluent Latvian in Latvia, renunciation of your current citizenship in Lithuania.
• Repatriation as a residence permit. In Latvia this is a five-year temporary permit for descendants of Latvians and Livs; in Lithuania it is a certificate of Lithuanian descent carrying the right to permanent residence. A permit to live in the country, not a passport.

Latvia: four doors into citizenship

Descendants of citizens as of 17 June 1940

This is the core route under Section 2 of the Citizenship Law. If your ancestor was on the books as a Latvian citizen on 17 June 1940, the law presumes that one of your parents was a Latvian citizen when you were born. There is no generational cap, no language exam and no requirement to live in Latvia. The Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs (PMLP) decides within one month of receiving a complete file, the shortest statutory deadline of any European descent programme.

The catch is your other citizenship. You may keep it only if it is on the permitted list: EU, EFTA and NATO member states, Australia, Brazil and New Zealand. Russian, Belarusian, Kazakh, Ukrainian and Israeli citizenship are not on that list, and PMLP requires a document confirming you have given it up. The Cabinet may grant an exception in the interests of the state, but do not build a plan around that.

Exiles of 1940-1990 and their descendants

Section 8.1 covers those whose ancestor fled Latvia from the Soviet or German occupation regimes between 17 June 1940 and 4 May 1990 and could not return: the families who left for the West in 1944. For this category dual citizenship is permitted with any country whatsoever. PMLP has up to four months to decide. Moving deeper into the USSR, say to Russia in the Soviet years, does not qualify under this section.

Latvians and Livs

If your ancestors were ethnic Latvians or Livs but never held Latvian citizenship (Siberian Latvians, descendants of nineteenth-century settlers), Section 2, paragraph 1, clause 3 applies. Three conditions: an ancestor lived on the territory of Latvia in 1881 or later, up to 17 June 1940; you, a parent or a grandparent are documented as Latvian or Liv; and you speak fluent Latvian. The language is tested in Latvia after you file. You may keep your current citizenship. Decision time is up to one year.

What is left of repatriation

Until 2023 a repatriate received permanent residence immediately, plus a relocation allowance. The programme was closed on internal-security grounds, and the Latvian Interior Ministry's figures explain why: between 2010 and 2022, 62 percent of applicants were Russian citizens, rising to 81 percent in 2022; more than 200 checks were carried out on suspicion of forged proof of Latvian origin and at least 80 criminal cases were opened. Descendants of Latvians and Livs from third countries now apply for a five-year temporary residence permit under the Immigration Law, with permanent residence available only after five years of continuous residence (no absence longer than six months in a row or a year in total) and Latvian at A2 or better. The route is formally open to Russian citizens too, but with heightened vetting.

Lithuania: restoration and the simplified procedure

Restoration under Article 9

Eligible are persons who were citizens of Lithuania before 15 June 1940 and their descendants, meaning children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That is a hard cap: a great-great-grandchild does not qualify, whereas Latvia has no limit. There is no language exam and no residence requirement. The application is filed electronically through MIGRIS and then in person at an embassy or the Migration Department; the state fee for processing is EUR 120 (paid to the state). By law the decision is due within six months; in practice applicant trackers show 6-12 months to a decision and about a year to a passport, and with archive research the whole journey usually runs 12-24 months.

Dual citizenship: the great divide

You can keep your existing citizenship on restoration only if your ancestor left Lithuania before 11 March 1990 and was permanently resident outside it on that date, or was deported or imprisoned. Since the 2016 amendments the reason for leaving no longer matters: emigration to Israel, Poland, Germany or the United States before 1990 is no longer treated as repatriation to an ethnic homeland that forfeits the right to a second passport. But the law expressly excludes anyone who moved to the territory of the former USSR after 15 June 1940. If your grandfather left Kaunas for Leningrad in the 1960s, you have a right to restoration, but only if you renounce Russian citizenship.

The referendum of 12 May 2024 on widening dual citizenship failed: 73.9 percent of participants voted in favour, but turnout was 59 percent, and amending Article 12 of the Constitution requires the votes of half of all registered voters. As of September 2026 there is no general rule in Lithuania allowing citizens of EU or NATO countries to keep their passports.

Citizenship through Lithuanian descent

If a parent or grandparent was ethnically Lithuanian but your ancestors never held Lithuanian citizenship, the simplified procedure applies: no language or constitution exam, no residence requirement, but you must renounce your other citizenship. The decision is made by presidential decree, and this is exactly where applicants from Russia and Belarus have got stuck, as discussed below. The interim document, a certificate of Lithuanian descent, gives an indefinite right to permanent residence.

Latvia or Lithuania: side by side

Documents and archive research

Both processes are won or lost in the archives. You must prove two things: the ancestor's citizenship or ethnicity, and an unbroken chain of descent down to you.

• Latvia. The ancestor's pre-war passport, 1935 census records, house registers, civil registry entries; for Latvians and Livs, the 1886-1887 census and parish registers from the Latvian State Historical Archives. Foreign documents must be legalised and translated, except those issued in the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland.
• Lithuania. Interwar passports, military records, census lists, parish registers from the Lithuanian Central State Archives and the State Historical Archives. Foreign documents need an apostille and a certified translation.
• Chain of descent. Birth and marriage certificates for every generation. A break in the surname (marriage, Soviet-era Russified spelling) is closed with name-change certificates or archive extracts.

Archive research takes one to six months depending on whether the ancestor's birthplace is known.

What a Latvian or Lithuanian passport gives you

Full EU citizenship: the right to live, work and study in any EU or EEA country without permits, Schengen without the 90/180 rule, visa-free entry to the United States under the Visa Waiver Program, to the UK and Japan, and to Canada with an eTA. Citizenship passes to your children at birth, and children of Latvian citizens may hold a second citizenship of any country. A passport does not make you a tax resident or oblige you to move: tax residence follows where you live, not what passport you hold. How to combine passports and what you have to declare is covered in our piece on dual citizenship in 2026.

The honest downsides

Language

Descendants of citizens face no exam in either country, and that is true. Step outside that category and language comes back: fluent Latvian for Latvians and Livs, A2 for permanent residence in Latvia via the repatriation route. Lithuania requires no language on any descent route but demands renunciation instead.

Treatment of Russian and Belarusian nationals

This needs saying plainly. Latvia has suspended first-time temporary residence permits for Russian and Belarusian citizens since 2022, with a handful of exceptions. Russian citizens holding permanent residence were required to pass Latvian at A2: about 4,650 people fell under the final wave with a deadline of 30 June 2025, and those who did not file had to leave the country by 13 October 2025. According to PMLP, since 15 July 2025 only biometric passports are accepted from Russian citizens. Citizenship registration by descent is formally unaffected, but renouncing Russian citizenship through a consulate takes months, and without that document PMLP will not register you.

In Lithuania, restoration under Article 9 is decided by the Migration Department and there is no formal bar on Russian or Belarusian applicants, but security screening has become longer and stricter. The simplified descent procedure is worse off: decrees are signed by the President, processing of Russian and Belarusian applications was effectively frozen after February 2022 and resumed in 2024 with an added assessment of whether the grant serves Lithuania's interests. In June 2025 LRT profiled ethnic Lithuanians from Russia who had waited more than three years for a decree. In August 2026 the President signed decrees granting citizenship to 276 people, including 78 born in Russia and 32 in Belarus: the process moves, but slowly and with no guarantees. Meanwhile, in 2025 the Migration Department refused residence permits to 1,721 Russian and Belarusian citizens as security threats, and in 2026 the Seimas is debating a suspension of new temporary residence applications from those nationals.

Other things intermediaries do not mention

• Latvia will print your name in Latvian form: Ivanov becomes Ivanovs. Mismatches with your other documents will need explaining to banks and airlines.
• Both countries have brought back conscription: Lithuania in 2015, Latvia in 2023. Citizens living abroad are not normally called up, but check the rule before filing for a son.
• Lithuania's three-generation cap excludes descendants of early twentieth-century emigrants: an ancestor who left before 1918 was never a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania.
• Renouncing Russian or Belarusian citizenship is irreversible, and without it neither Latvia under Section 2 nor Lithuania for those who moved within the USSR will issue a passport.

Which route fits whom

If your ancestors emigrated to the West before 1990, you are in the strongest position: Lithuania lets you keep dual citizenship and Latvia's exile provision applies. If your family ended up in Russia or another former Soviet republic, the choice is this: Latvian citizenship by descent with renunciation, Latvian citizenship through the ethnic route with a fluency exam, or Lithuanian citizenship with renunciation only. We run the archive research and handle registration under our Latvian citizenship by descent and Lithuanian citizenship by descent programmes, starting with an honest assessment of your chances. If you have no Baltic roots but do have ancestors from Bessarabia or a Greek line, look at repatriation to Moldova and Greek citizenship by descent: both allow dual citizenship and set no language exam for descendants.

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