How to stay in Hungary while waiting for your citizenship approval?

It all depends on your application process

The procedure that lets you stay in Hungary while you wait for becoming a Hungarian citizen depends on the type of your citizenship application. There are 3 methods:

• Verification of citizenship: if you are supposed to be a citizen already, but somehow you aren’t
• Simplified naturalization: if your parents or other ancestors were Hungarian citizens
• Naturalization: if you have been a resident of Hungary for 8+ years

Waiting for citizenship approval with verification

You should keep in mind that regularly foreigners are allowed to stay in Hungary for 90 days without registration (a residence permit, in most cases). Since verifying your citizenship takes usually around 6 months, you cannot just come here with a visa and wait for your citizenship approval. Either you have to leave after 90 days, wait 90 days somewhere else, and then come back for 90 days… Or, you can apply for a residence permit while you are waiting. The residence permit application can be based directly on your citizenship application, on some more regular options, like work, gainful activity (business operation), family unification, “another reason”, etc.

When you apply for a residence permit beside your citizenship verification, the Immigration Office will NOT give you a residence permit, since you might already be a Hungarian citizen (and Hungarian citizens obviously cannot hold residence permits). However, they will give you a temporary residency card which will let you stay in Hungary until your citizenship is verified. At the same time, your temporary residency card will not let you travel, so unless your existing passport or visa makes that possible, you are stuck in Hungary for the time being – or if you leave, you won’t be allowed to come back for 90 days.

Waiting for citizenship approval through ancestry (simplified naturalization)

Since you cannot stay in Hungary for more than 90 days at a time without being a resident, you will have to apply for Hungarian residency while you are waiting for your citizenship approval in the simplified naturalization procedure, which might take 8-10 months. You can apply based on your local work, gainful activity (business operation), family unification, or for “another reason”.

When your citizenship application is approved and you become a Hungarian citizen, your residency will be revoked – but then you will already have received your own Hungarian ID card.

Waiting for citizenship approval with naturalization

You can apply for Hungarian citizenship by the regular naturalization procedure if you have been a permanent resident of Hungary or have been holding a Hungarian address card (the plastic card, not the paper slip) for more than 8 years. In this case, you already have a residence permit, so you have nothing else to do, but apply and wait for the results.

Need help?

If you are not sure which citizenship application procedure suits you most, ask for a consultation with one of our experts. They will surely be able to tell you which procedure you need and help you decide what kind of residency to apply for while you are waiting for your citizenship approval. Alternatively, if you are just starting to think about getting Hungarian citizenship, you can also take our free citizenship eligibility test, no strings attached.