Record number of Americans applying for UK citizenship after Donald Trump re-election
4 March 2025, 16:42
The number of Americans applying for UK citizenship has hit its highest level on record last year, as Donald Trump’s return to the White House and UK tax changes attract US citizens.
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Over 6,100 US citizens applied to live in the UK in 2024, double the number of applications when records began two decades ago.
The overall number of applications was up by 6 per cent to another record - 251,000, according to Home Office figures.
The last quarter of 2024 saw most of the applications, with another record-breaking 1,708 applications submitted between October and December - the period of Trump’s re-election.
Madeleine Sumption, director of Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, said the data was part of a longer-term upwards trend with “a slightly larger increase than usual in 2024”.
Ms Sumpton said politics are more often a ‘third or fourth factor’ in the decision making of people moving to ‘safe countries’ - not the most important reason by itself.
But others say Donald Trump’s re-election was an important part of the reason people are moving out of the US and into the UK.
Elena Hinchin, partner at law firm Farrer & Co, said: “We've definitely seen more interest in citizenship from the US since the lead-up to the election campaign.
“There's much more interest than under the previous Trump administration.”
She added that the abolition of the non-dom tax status in the UK has attracted wealthy Americans living in Britain to seek citizenship before they leave, according to the Financial Times.
“Many high-net-worth individuals are considering leaving the UK given the tax changes,” she said.
“They want to apply for citizenship now so that they don’t lose the right to do so . . . it just keeps the door open and means more flexibility for their children.”
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Not anyone can apply for citizenship in the UK, as applicants need to fulfil certain criteria, including having lived in the UK for five years, being married to a British person, or having parents that are UK citizens.
Another immigration lawyer Ono Okeregha, director at the law firm Immigration Advice Service, said there was a ‘huge spike’ in searches for British citizenship the day after the US election. This interest continued into Trump’s second term.
Mr Okeregha said the numbers might reflect the ‘aftermath of the first Donald Dash’, as Americans who moved to Britain during Trump’s first term between 2016 and 2020 are now eligible for UK citizenship.
It comes as the relations between the US and Europe become increasingly fraught amid Trump’s row with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, causing widespread unrest about the sustainability of the post-war global order.
