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§4 StAG · Descent Through a ParentGerman Citizenship Through Your Parent
This page is informational, not legal advice. It describes the §4 StAG descent path in general terms based on publicly available German government sources. For guidance on your specific situation, consult a licensed German citizenship attorney. German citizenship law can change — the information below reflects the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG) as amended through 2026 and may not reflect subsequent amendments.
Last verified: September 7, 2026 · Maintained by The Next Passport (Warner Creates LLC).
Section 4 of the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG) — Germany's Nationality Act — is the default path to German citizenship by descent. It applies the principle of jus sanguinis (right of blood): a child born to a German citizen parent acquires German citizenship automatically at birth, regardless of where in the world the child is born.
For modern claims, the §4 path is generally straightforward provided two conditions hold: the parent was a German citizen at the moment of the child's birth, and the parent had not already lost German citizenship by then under §25 StAG. §25 was repealed — the section number is still in the Act, but the text under it is gone. Historical exceptions exist for pre-1975 gender rules and post-1999 births abroad — detailed below.
The core §4 StAG rule
§4(1) StAG provides, in one sentence, that “durch die Geburt erwirbt ein Kind die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit, wenn ein Elternteil die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit besitzt” — a child acquires German citizenship at birth if one parent holds it. Read the reach of that sentence carefully rather than the sentence alone: it covered children born in wedlock from January 1, 1975, and it did not cover non-marital children of a German father until July 1, 1993. Before each of those dates the rule turned on which parent was German. Those two gaps are why §5 StAG (the gender-fix declaration) exists today, and why the BVA gives each of them its own checklist.
§4(1) has a second sentence that catches a lot of families: where only the father is German and German law needs paternity to be recognised or judicially established, the recognition must have been declared — or the establishment proceedings started — before the child turned 23. Miss that window and the acquisition cannot be asserted, however clear the biology.
§25 StAG (repealed)
If your parent was a German citizen and became a citizen of another country before you were born, read the text of §25 StAG that was in force on that date against the facts: every era is quoted, in German with our translation, on the dual-citizenship reform page, and the free eligibility check asks the facts it turned on. Start the free eligibility check →
§25 StAG was repealed — the section number is still in the Act, but the text under it is gone — open gesetze-im-internet.de/stag/__25.html and the whole section is the single word (weggefallen). §17(1), the list of ways German citizenship can now be lost, has three entries: renunciation (§26), voluntarily joining the armed forces of a foreign state whose citizenship you already hold, or taking concrete part in a terrorist organisation's combat operations abroad (§28), and withdrawal of an unlawful administrative act (§35). Voluntary foreign naturalization is not one of them.
The repeal is not a restoration. It stopped §25 from taking anyone else's citizenship from June 27, 2024 onward; it did not hand back what the section had already taken.
§4(4) StAG — the post-1999 generation cutoff
§4(4) StAG applies where the German parent was born abroad after December 31, 1999 and is habitually resident abroad. The date attaches to the parent's birth, not the child's — the statute reads “wenn der deutsche Elternteil nach dem 31. Dezember 1999 im Ausland geboren wurde und dort seinen gewöhnlichen Aufenthalt hat.” A parent born after that date is at most in their mid-twenties today, so in practice this cutoff reaches very few families so far. Where it does apply, the child does not automatically acquire German citizenship at birth unless the child would otherwise be stateless, or unless the parents file an application under §36 of the Personenstandsgesetz to enter the birth in the German birth register, filed within one year of the birth — and it is enough that it reaches the competent German mission inside that year. Where both parents are German, the cutoff bites only if both meet those conditions.
Two carve-outs, in two different subsections, and it matters that you read both. §4(4) Satz 4 disapplies the cut-off for an Art. 116(2) Basic Law claim and a §15 StAG claim — §4(4) Satz 4 disapplies it for those two claims themselves — one line, “Für den Anspruch nach Artikel 116 Absatz 2 des Grundgesetzes und nach § 15 ist die Rechtsfolge nach Satz 1 unbeachtlich”. Then §4(5) separately disapplies it for the descendants of a German who acquired citizenship under Art. 116(2) or §15 — and, under Nr. 2, for the descendants of someone who would have had such a claim even if they never made it. The second limb is the one people miss: it reaches you even if the ancestor never applied, so long as they would have had the claim.
We had this wrong in both directions on 6 September 2026, within hours. This page said the cut-off is disregarded for those claims “and their descendants”, which is correct; a review deleted the descendants on the ground that §4(4) Satz 4 does not mention them, which is also correct — because the descendants are in §4(5), the next subsection along. Reading one subsection and stopping is how a true statement gets retracted.
So the question to ask is about your parent, not you: was your German parent born abroad on or after January 1, 2000, and were they living abroad when you were born? If your German parent was born before 2000 — which is the case for the overwhelming majority of applicants today — §4(4) does not touch your claim at all, however recently you were born. It also does not apply if the parent was resident in Germany at the time of your birth, even if they were born abroad. Where §4(4) does apply and no registration was filed within the year, the automatic acquisition is gone — take advice on what, if anything, remains open.
Pre-1975 gender rules (children born in wedlock)
Before January 1, 1975, a child born in wedlock to a German citizen mother and a foreign citizen father did NOT automatically acquire German citizenship — only the father's citizenship was transmitted. The Federal Constitutional Court held that incompatible with the equality of men and women under Art. 3(2) of the Basic Law in BVerfGE 37, 217, decided May 21, 1974, which is why the law changed on January 1, 1975 — and why claims from that period are handled under §5 StAG rather than §4 Feststellung.
If you were born after May 23, 1949 but before January 1, 1975, your mother was a German citizen on the day of your birth, your father was not, and your parents had married before you were born, you likely did not acquire German citizenship at birth under the rules in force at that time. Your path today is §5 StAG — not §4 — and it is both free and filed by declaration rather than by proving unbroken descent. Those four conditions are the BVA's own checklist for §5(1) item 1, mother variant; all four have to hold.
Pre-1993 rules (children born out of wedlock to a German father)
Before July 1, 1993, a non-marital child of a German citizen father and a foreign citizen mother did not acquire German citizenship at birth at all. There was no paternity test to pass; descent from an unmarried German father simply did not transmit. The §4(1) Satz 2 rule described above — recognition or establishment of paternity before the child's 23rd birthday — is the regime that replaced it, and it governs births from July 1, 1993 onward.
For the earlier births the remedy is §5(1) item 1, father variant. BVA's checklist for it has five boxes, not four, and all five have to be ticked: born after May 23, 1949 and before July 1, 1993; your mother not a German citizen on the day of your birth; your father a German citizen on that day; your parents not married to each other before July 1, 1998; and paternity recognised, or proceedings to establish it started, before your 23rd birthday. The two parent conditions are two separate rows on BVA's form — we published them merged into one until September 7, 2026, which understated the count. That last condition is the one readers get backwards — the route requires that paternity was recognised in time, not that it was missed. It is also not §5 item 3, which is a different scenario entirely: losing citizenship you already held, through a foreign father's legitimisation, in a window that closed in 1953.
What you'll need
Applicant's documents
Merkblatt F asks, as an always-required item, for an officially or notarially certified copy of your current passport or ID document — the pages carrying the photo and personal details. Then, under “Unterlagen über Abstammung und Personenstand”, it asks for “Geburts- oder Abstammungsurkunden, Heiratsurkunden, Familienbücher”. Note that it accepts the ordinary Geburtsurkunde: BVA does not publish a long-form-only rule for the applicant's own birth record.
German parent's documents
Parent's German birth or descent certificate (Geburts- oder Abstammungsurkunde) from the relevant Standesamt, parent's marriage certificate, and parent's proof of German citizenship. Merkblatt F asks for these “für Sie und alle Personen, von denen Sie die deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit ableiten” — for you and everyone you derive citizenship from, back to the ancestor the claim starts at, not just the one generation above you. Under “Unterlagen über den Erwerb der deutschen Staatsangehörigkeit” it names naturalisation certificates, certificates of acquisition by declaration or by option, a certificate under §15 of the Bundesvertriebenengesetz, and appointment documents for civil servants.
Naturalization records (if applicable)
If your parent emigrated and later naturalized, you may need to establish the date of naturalization (for §25 StAG analysis). Get the two record offices the right way round: NARA holds FEDERAL court naturalizations and says in its own words that 'as a general rule, the National Archives does not have naturalization records created in state or local courts'. C-files are a USCIS series, not a NARA one, and they are where a state, county or municipal court naturalization between 27 September 1906 and 31 March 1956 is actually findable. Later naturalizations sit in the USCIS A-file series or with the court itself.
Sworn German translations — and the form the originals take
Every non-German document must be translated by a sworn translator (vereidigter or ermächtigter Übersetzer) recognized by a German court. The rule BVA publishes is absolute rather than a matter of degree: translations by anyone other than a sworn (vereidigt) translator are not accepted. A generic US “certified” translation does not meet it.
Where it's decided
The Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA) in Cologne decides every §4 StAG Feststellung application. You may post the package to BVA yourself, hand it to your nearest German mission to forward, or file through the federal Bundesportal — a mission checks completeness and forwards; it does not decide your eligibility. Allow 2–3 years from submission to issuance of the Staatsangehörigkeitsausweis, and know what that figure is: the expectation the German missions publish, not a measured average — no authority publishes one. The German missions phrase it as what the process “may take”, and the BVA receives about 1,000 new Feststellung applications a month, worked in order of receipt.
See our BVA application process guide for the full form inventory, fee schedule, and timeline.
Not sure if §4 is your path?
Our free eligibility check walks you through pre-1975 gender rules, §25 chain-breakers, and §4(4) registration deadlines — and tells you whether §5 StAG or Art. 116(2) may be a better path for your specific family history.
Start the free eligibility check →Not legal advice. This page describes §4 StAG descent in general terms based on publicly available German government sources. Consult a licensed German citizenship attorney for guidance on your specific situation.