Citizenship Without Residence, Migration Without Immigrants? Hungary’s Ancestral Citizenship Regime and Its Impact on Migration

The next lecture of the Research Group on Cross-Border Cooperation will explore the effects of Hungary’s preferential naturalisation regime on cross-border mobility and migration. It will examine how access to Hungarian citizenship without changing one’s place of residence has influenced migration patterns among Hungarian communities beyond the country’s borders, and how this, in turn, has affected immigration to Hungary.

The lecture focuses on the changing relationship between citizenship, residence and migration. The extension of preferential access to Hungarian citizenship to ethnic Hungarians living abroad has created a distinctive situation in which acquiring citizenship does not necessarily entail moving to Hungary, while it may open up new opportunities for cross-border mobility. The presentation will examine how these processes have affected Hungarian communities in neighbouring countries and what they mean for the interpretation and statistical measurement of immigration to Hungary.

The presentation will take place on 19 November 2026 from 10:00. Registration is open here.