December 31, 2025 came and went, and with it, the final chance to apply for Luxembourg citizenship through Article 89 of nationality law.
No more applications. No more extensions. After years of shifting deadlines—and one nail-biting legislative vote just 21 days before a previous cutoff—the ancestry-based citizenship recovery program that defined a generation of Luxembourg’s diaspora engagement is officially closed.
Now, we’re starting to see what those final months actually looked like in the data.
Why the January-March 2026 Data Is Worth Watching
The Luxembourg government publishes through the Registre National des Personnes Physiques (RNPP) a quarterly count of its citizens living abroad.
The January-March 2026 report is the first dataset that captures applicants from the final stretch of Article 89—specifically, those who applied between September and November 2025 and whose citizenship took effect four months later.
This is significant because of how Luxembourg citizenship by option or through recovery works procedurally: there’s a four-month lag between the declaration and when it legally takes effect. So the September–November applicants are only showing up now in the numbers. The December rush—when appointment slotss at the Bierger-Center were completely booked—won’t appear until the next report, expected in early July.
A Deadline That Wouldn’t Die
Article 89 established in the 2017 nationality law, allowing descendants of anyone who was a Luxembourg citizen living on January 1, 1900, to recover that citizenship. But the timeline was never simple.
The original 2008 law envisioned a single deadline in 2018. Then the 2017 Luxembourg citizenship law introduced a two-phase process: validate your ancestor by December 31, 2018, then complete the full procedure by December 31, 2020.
Then COVID-19 hit International travel ground to a halt, and the required trip to Luxembourg became impossible. The deadline was extended three separate times. Many people believed 2022 would be the final cutoff—and with good reason, since the Luxembourgish government only voted to extend the deadline on December 10, 2022, just 21 days before it would have expired. That close call triggered a massive wave of applications and produced the single largest surge on record: in the first three months of 2023, 1,206 Americans and 5,648 Brazilians became Luxembourg citizens. The Bierger-Center was fully booked for the last three months leading up to what everyone assumed was the end.
Ultimately, the program was extended one final time to December 31, 2025.
Going Into the Final Stretch
Heading into those last four months before the December 2025 deadline, there were: 623 Americans and 2,621 Brazilians with open, valid applications under Article 89.
On the American side, we suspected—based on our own client experience—that many of those 623 had quietly abandoned their applications or, in some cases, had passed away since originally starting the process years earlier. In our own client group, around 240 Americans, virtually everyone who intended to complete the process had done so by the 2022 deadline scare. The remaining names were largely people who had dropped off.
Brazil’s picture was different. More Brazilians were eligible to begin with, and we expected a more meaningful final push.
The Numbers From January-March 2026
United States: 926 new citizens
That’s the third-highest total ever recorded in a quarter, behind only the last three months of 2025 and the first three months of 2023. It’s a 4.4% increase over the previous quarter – a remarkably strong showing this late in the program. These are among the very last Article 89 applicants making it through the system.
Brazil: 1,061 new citizens
Up 3.3% from the previous quarter, and it lands in the top 10 quarters on record. But it’s far cry from the peaks. For comparison, the first three months of 2023 saw 5,648 new Brazilian-Luxembourg citizens, and the final months of 2022 had 2,292. Given that more Brazilians were eligible going into the final stretch, the moderate growth suggests that many of those remaining applications had also stalled.
We expect a bump when the December applicants appear in the next report, but at this point, it seems unlikely we’ll see a quarter with 2,000+ new citizens from Brazil again.
It’s also worth noting that Brazilian growth has been slowing relative to American growth since early 2025— reversing a pattern that had been consistent for years.
Argentina: 23 new citizens
Bringing the total to 686 Luxembourg citizens in Argentina.
A Milestone: 55,000 in the Americas
Combining the United States, Brazil, and Argentina, there are now 55,771 Luxembourg citizens in the Americas, up from 53,761 in the last period. It’s the first time the figure has surpassed 55,000.
The Bigger Picture
Globally, the total number of Luxembourg citizens living abroad rose to 160,116—an increase of 3,158, or 2%, in just three months. That’s a substantial jump by any measure.
Growth in Luxembourg’s neighboring countries remains steady, with Germany hovering just below 1% quarterly growth. Which brings us to perhaps the most interesting projection coming out of this data.
The U.S. Is About to Pass Germany
Based on average growth since January 2025, the U.S. is on pace to add roughly 900 new Luxembourg citizens every three months going forward. That would bring the total number of Luxembourg citizens in the United States to approximately 22,780 by the next Luxembourg government data release in early July 2026.
Germany currently sits in fourth place globally—after France, Brazil, and Belgium—among countries with the most Luxembourg citizens. At the current trajectory, the United States will surpass Germany for the first time on record, likely by June or July of this year.
That’s a remarkable shift. A decade ago, the idea that the American Luxembourg diaspora would rival the number of Luxembourgers living in Germany—a country that shares a physical border with the Grand-Duchy—would have seemed far-fetched. It’s a testament to what Article 89 set in motion, and to the enduring connection between Luxembourg and its global descendants.
LuxCitizenship has guided more than 3,500 clients through the Luxembourg citizenship process over the past 10 years. While Article 89 has closed, Luxembourg citizenship by descent remains available through other pathways. Contact us to learn more.
