Romanian citizenship by descent: Article 10 or Article 11 — which route leads to your passport

Romanian law offers the descendants of former citizens two routes, and each reaches a different number of generations. Article 10 of Legea 21/1991 extends to descendants of the second degree, that is, grandchildren. Article 11 extends to the third degree, that is, great-grandchildren. What separates the two is not how many generations have passed but why the ancestor stopped being a Romanian citizen. Article 10 covers citizenship that was given up, while Article 11 covers citizenship lost through no fault of the person, including when a border moved and the person found themselves in another country. For families from Bessarabia and Bukovina, Article 11 is usually the relevant one.

This also explains why answers to the question “how far back does the law reach?” can seem to differ from one source to another: they may be describing different articles.

This guide is also available in Hebrew: איפה מסמכי הסבים מבסרביה ובוקובינה

Start with the place, not the generation

The question families usually ask is not about articles at all. It is something like: my great-grandfather was born in Bălți — does that count?

This is a good place to begin, because the place of birth is usually what points to the right article.

Born within Romania’s present borders — Transylvania, Banat, Moldavia, Wallachia, Dobruja. Here citizenship was not lost because a border moved. If it was lost at all, it was lost through the person’s own act, which points to Article 10 and a reach of two degrees.

Born in a former Romanian territory — Bessarabia, now largely the Republic of Moldova, or Bukovina, now largely the Chernivtsi region of Ukraine. These territories were part of Romania between the wars, and their inhabitants lost Romanian citizenship in 1940 without being asked. That points to Article 11 and a reach of three degrees.

The starting position for these families was set out in Article 56 of Legea 724/1924: the inhabitants of the united provinces are and remain Romanian citizens, without being required to complete any formality. This covered those with indigenat (the local right of residence and belonging) in Bukovina, Transylvania, Banat, Crișana, Sătmar and Maramureș as of 18 November / 1 December 1918, and those with administrative domicile in Bessarabia as of 27 March / 9 April 1918, unless they had opted for another nationality.

In other words, these people did not need to register anything to become Romanian citizens; they were citizens by operation of law, meaning automatically, as a direct effect of the statute. This is the foundation on which a claim under Article 11 rests.

What does Article 11 actually say?

It is sometimes said that the 2025 reform ended claims by great-grandchildren. The text of the law shows that it did not:

Persoanele care au fost cetățeni români, dar au pierdut cetățenia română din motive neimputabile lor sau cărora această cetățenie le-a fost ridicată fără voia lor, precum și descendenții acestora până la gradul III, la cerere, pot redobândi sau li se poate acorda cetățenia română…

Persons who were Romanian citizens but lost that citizenship for reasons not attributable to them, or from whom it was taken without their will, and their descendants to the third degree, may on application regain or be granted Romanian citizenship.

Legea 14/2025 rewrote this paragraph but kept the third degree. What the reform added was the language requirement, not a shorter family line.

The paragraph also uses two different verbs, and the difference is meaningful. Redobândi means to regain, and it applies to the ancestor, who is getting back something that was taken away. Li se poate acorda means “may be granted”, and it applies to a descendant who was never a Romanian citizen and is receiving citizenship for the first time.

Article 10, and why it reaches fewer generations

Article 10 concerns citizenship that was given up rather than taken away. Most often this happened through renunciation, and most often renunciation was the condition for being allowed to leave the country. Its reach is descendants of the second degree, meaning the children and grandchildren of the person who lost citizenship.

The shorter reach follows a clear logic. Article 11 exists to put right something the state did to people without their consent, whereas Article 10 addresses a decision the person made themselves. Romanian law treats these two situations differently, and as a result the family line covered by Article 10 is shorter.

The difference in one table

	Article 10	Article 11
How citizenship was lost	given up — typically by renunciation	taken away, or lost through no fault of the person, including by borders moving
Reach	to the second degree — grandchildren	to the third degree — great-grandchildren
Typical origin	present-day Romania	Bessarabia, Bukovina and other former territories
Romanian at B1	required	required

Who decides which article applies?

Many people are surprised to learn that you do not choose your article. The National Authority for Citizenship determines the legal basis from the documents in the file.

Whether an ancestor renounced citizenship or had it withdrawn also cannot be established from a family story, because the answer is recorded in an official file: either a decree of the Council of State or an application signed by the person themselves. Under Legea 24/1971, which was in force until 1991, both mechanisms existed side by side. The Council of State could withdraw citizenship, including from people who had left the country clandestinely, and it could also approve a renunciation that a person had applied for.

This means that two neighbours who left in the same year can end up under different articles, with a different reach for their grandchildren. Which one applies to your family is therefore established from the records held in archives, not by counting generations at home.

Before either article: are you already a citizen?

Both routes assume that the chain of citizenship was broken at some point. In some families it never was, and in that case neither article applies, because there is nothing to grant. That situation is handled as confirmation of a status you already hold, which follows a different procedure and has no language requirement.

For this reason it makes sense to check that possibility first. The check itself costs nothing, and if the chain turns out to be unbroken, the whole procedure that follows is different.

How does the language requirement work?

Both articles require a certificate of Romanian at B1 level, an intermediate level of language ability. The deadline for filing that certificate now runs to 15 March 2027. The requirement, the exemptions and the places where the exam can be taken from abroad are described in a separate article.

There are exemptions for former Romanian citizens themselves, for applicants aged 65 or over, and for children included in a parent’s application. These exemptions do not extend to descendants applying in their own right, so a great-grandchild applying under Article 11 does need the certificate.

What the law does and does not promise

Romanian law states clearly that its provisions do not give a foreign citizen a right to be granted Romanian citizenship on application. Instead, the authority examines each file and makes a decision.

This decision is not final in the sense of being beyond review. An order rejecting an application can be challenged before the Bucharest Tribunal within fifteen days of its communication, with a further appeal to the Bucharest Court of Appeal, so the authority’s reasoning can be examined by a court. At the same time, because the decision rests with the authority, no one, including us, can promise a particular outcome in advance.

Where to start

The best starting point is the place and the dates: where the ancestor was born, what that territory was at the time, and when they left. In most families these three facts are enough to see, within an afternoon, which side of the line they are on. Whether the ancestor held Romanian citizenship in the first place is explained in was your grandparent a Romanian citizen? What that first check examines, and why it comes before any documents are ordered, is set out in a separate article.

What these facts cannot show is why citizenship ended, and that is the question the archives answer. The whole route, from the first archive request to filing, is described in Romanian citizenship by descent. Send us what you have, and we will tell you which records the case needs and what recovering them costs.