Armenia is proposing a fivefold increase in the state fee for acquiring citizenship, from the current AMD 50,000 to AMD 250,000. The fee for terminating citizenship is proposed to rise from the current AMD 150,000 to AMD 1.5 million — a tenfold increase.
As a result, renouncing citizenship would cost six times more than acquiring it.
It is precisely this ratio that raises the main question: what logic is the state placing at the foundation of the institution of citizenship?
If citizenship constitutes a full legal relationship between an individual and the state, then both acquiring that status and renouncing it should be governed by clear administrative procedures.
The state undoubtedly has the right to impose fees for processing documents and reviewing applications. However, when renouncing citizenship becomes several times more expensive than acquiring it, this begins to look less like an administrative fee and more like the creation of a financial barrier.
This appears particularly strange against the backdrop of the current authorities’ foreign policy course.
Armenia declares its intention to move closer to the European Union and Western countries, yet the proposed approach toward its own citizenship largely moves in the opposite direction.
In the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, acquiring citizenship costs more than renouncing it.
In the United Kingdom, naturalization for an adult, including the ceremony, costs £1,839, while renouncing British citizenship is substantially cheaper.
In Canada, an adult applicant pays CAD 530 for processing a citizenship application, plus another CAD 123 as a right-of-citizenship fee, bringing the total to CAD 653.
Renouncing Canadian citizenship costs just CAD 100.
The situation in the United States has also shifted toward reducing the cost of citizenship renunciation. From April 2026, the fee for renouncing US citizenship was reduced from $2,350 to $450.
In other words, the countries Armenia seeks to approach politically and institutionally generally demonstrate the opposite logic to what is being proposed in Armenia: acquiring citizenship is the more expensive procedure, while the state does not impose a financial barrier on people who decide to renounce it.
There are, of course, countries where acquiring citizenship is more affordable than renouncing it.
In Jamaica, for example, naturalization costs 50,000 Jamaican dollars, while renouncing citizenship within the country costs 80,000.
But even there, the difference is 60%, rather than 500% as is now being proposed in Armenia.
Even Russia, from which Armenia’s ruling force has in recent years been “trying to run away at full speed,” presents a somewhat different picture.
Russia has also sharply increased the cost of renouncing citizenship abroad. This is understandable: given the military hostilities, many Russian citizens are trying to renounce their citizenship.
From August 1, 2026, the consular fee for processing an application to renounce citizenship is $1,200, while acquiring Russian citizenship abroad costs $600.
Within Russia, the situation is less severe. Since July 2026, both acquiring and renouncing citizenship are subject to the same state fee of 50,000 rubles.
Yes, if a person renounces Russian citizenship abroad, the final amount may exceed the consular fee itself because of additional actual expenses incurred by the consulate.
However, even this example is substantially less restrictive than the model proposed in Armenia.
And the issue here is not the amount of money the person renouncing citizenship must pay, but the underlying attitude toward the very concept of citizenship.
In effect, at the state level, Armenian citizenship is being presented as so unattractive that the state is prepared to provide it almost for free.
Put simply, citizenship is being turned into a kind of gym membership where you are required to pay a penalty if you decide to cancel it.
In a normal system of relations between citizens and the state, citizenship should retain its attractiveness primarily through rights, opportunities, security and trust in state institutions — not through financial barriers designed to make renunciation more difficult.