Likely thousands of Americans were prevented from traveling to Luxembourg to complete their citizenship procedures in 2020. However, this does not mean that the interest in the topic of Luxembourg citizenship was reduced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Things were quite the contrary. 2020 represented the year with by far the most new clients in LuxCitizenship’s history.
2020 Explained – New Applications for Dual Citizenship
Our previous record-setting year was 2018. 2018 was the final deadline to start an Article 89 application. In 2020, we added 23% more clients than we even did in 2018. In 2020, we saw a huge interest in the Article 7 process for obtaining a Certificate of Nationality. This can be done from home without travel, essential in the time of a Pandemic.
Measuring Total Applications Made
LuxCitizenship clients account for about 11% total of all Americans claiming Luxembourg dual citizenship. According to our research and Ministry statistics, LuxCitizenship’s clients represented about 12% of the overall completed applications for Luxembourg dual citizenship under Article 89 in Q1 2020.
We know that only 9.5% of the Luxembourg Dual Citizenship eligibility inquiries we received through our free dual citizenship eligibility test in 2020 converted into paid clients. Considering that our clients represent 11% of all American applicants for Dual Citizenship, it might be reasonable to believe that we do give eligibility opinions to a large % of the people pursuing dual citizenship.
We know from our website statistics that the main way people get to us is through Google. Google also provides Search Trends that help us understand the demand for any topic.
May and September See Highest Demand
What we see from the Google Trends graph is that searches in the USA for Luxembourg Citizenship were highest in middle May and late September 2020. There was also strong demand in summer and in October.
Trends Affected by Different Factors
So, what drives interest in Luxembourg dual citizenship and in particular in 2020? We already know from previous anecdotal evidence from the Ministry of Justice that 2018 was by far the highest previous year for applications from the USA for dual citizenship. The assumption there was that this was tied to the first deadline under Article 89 (Dec 31, 2018). So, we could also assume that interest in Luxembourg citizenship on Google would be high in 2020, as it was also originally a deadline year under Article 89. (This changed due to Covid.) But why in particular were May and then September major months?
There are multiple factors likely explaining the various points. By May 2020, it had become self-evident that international travel would not be possible in 2020. The Luxembourgish Government published a bill to extend the deadline, and this was followed with great attention by the applicant community. Also, on September 25th, a Reddit user transcribed details from a citizenship eligibility call with LuxCitizenship that led to a chain under the r/youshouldknow channel. It became the 26th most popular article on Reddit that day and had 26,500 upvotes in under 12 hours.
Could Current Events and Politics Be a Factor?
While there are some explanations for the Google search, there is also the possibility that political events could have inspired these peaks and troughs. Generally in 2020, United States citizens saw a turbulent year in their country due to political events and the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, many citizens became concerned to see their passport become one of the least powerful in the world due to Covid-19. By August 2020, a New York Times editorial claimed that a European passport through ancestry had become THE new status symbol of the American middle class. When looking at the Luxembourg citizenship trends, in May/June of 2020, the United States was living through the Black Lives Matter protests. Additionally, in September/October 2020, we saw the lead-up to the hotly contested United States presidential election.
Dual Citizenship Eligibility Tests 2020
We may be able to use our own insight to give a view on the political impacts. On our side, we had 18,889 users visit our site in 2018. They viewed on average 3.72 pages over 02:37 minutes. This was a total of 98,070 page views in the year. By comparison, this is 9x higher than our viewership in 2019. In 2020, our periods with the most visitors were May (2,977) and September (7,970). 2020 was the first year we offered our free Luxembourg Dual Citizenship eligibility test. May and September were also the months with the most inquiries, closely followed by October, June, and November.
Message(s) in a Bottle
Search was generally up for Luxembourg Citizenship during these periods. However, we note from our side that in the May-June period, the inquiries that we receive directly referred to politics and “unrest” in ways that we had never seen before. We also noted a similar peak in these inquiries in the October-November period. We also saw throughout the year mini-periods where particular activity seemed to correlate with political events. On July 30th, 2020, Donald Trump suggested in a Tweet that the US Federal Election should be delayed due to Covid-19.
On that same day, all unsigned LuxCitizenship contracts we had sent out were signed. All unpaid invoices were paid. Additionally, we noticed a small but noticeable increase in inquiries in the following early days of August. While this could be coincidental, when we see an increase of client inquiry messages citing politics in 2020 compared to previous years, it does seem worth studying more.
Dual Citizenship 5 Year Trends from Google
We zoomed out to a five-year view of Google Searches for “Dual Citizenship” in the USA. Here, it is clear that, at least historically, the political environment and specifically Donald Trump appears to have pushed interest in dual citizenship in the USA. We can see that the highest interest in dual citizenship in the US dates from immediately after Donald Trump was elected in November 2016. Again, it peaked at the end of the first week of his presidency (week of January 20th, 2017).
The trends for 2020 are telling. We see that overall throughout 2020, interest in dual citizenship was elevated in the USA compared to previous years. One interesting fact is that the lowest point over 5 years for searches for dual citizenship occurs in the week of March 15th, 2020. This would seem to indicate that as the world went into lockdown for the first time, people were too distracted to look into dual citizenship. This aligns with our own experience. When major political or social events occur, people are distracted, and it’s only in the following week that interest occurs. We also see the highest interest in dual citizenship in 2020 on the week of July 26th. Could this also be because of Donald Trump’s Tweet proposing to delay the US election?
Luxembourg Citizenship 5 Year Trend from Google
Interestingly enough, we looked at the trends in search for Luxembourg Citizenship in the USA over the last 5 years. It would be reasonable to assert that politics doesn’t seem to have the same effect on the Google Trends for Luxembourg Citizenship as it does for Dual Citizenship. We see no significant peaks of interest towards the time Trump is elected. In fact, the peaks we see seem to correspond to building interest in the programs as the deadlines approached. In particular, there was a huge spike in August 2018. Back then, many people were likely searching about the topic a few months before the first deadline. On the other hand, we do see slightly higher peaks in 2020 compared to previous years.
Want to learn more? Over the next two weeks, we will be releasing our annual research on who are the American-Luxembourgers, these new dual citizens. You can check all of our research on the dual citizenship trends in 2020 in one place: https://www.luxcitizenship.com/luxembourg-dual-citizenship-trends-2020/.
To see our demographic report about the new American-Luxembourgish dual citizens, check out: https://www.luxcitizenship.com/american-luxembourgers/.
Interested to find out if you are eligible for Luxembourg dual citizenship? Take our eligibility test to find out: https://luxcitizenship.com/eligibility-test/.