The Outbound American: New Research Tracks the Largest U.S. Emigration Shift in Decades
Global Citizen Solutions releases new research on the structural forces driving America's emigration transformation — and where it leads.
12 May 2026
Global Citizen Solutions ("GCS"), a leading residency and citizenship planning advisory firm, has published From Destination to Departure: America’s New Migration Story, a new briefing from its research arm, the Global Intelligence Unit (GIU), examining the long-term rise in American emigration. The shift has been decades in the making and is now measurable through citizenship renunciationrecords, overseas residency registrations, and survey data tracking Americans’ interest in moving abroad.The scale of the outbound movement is visible across every continent. Based on analysis of Department of Homeland Security data and other immigration records, an estimated 2.2 million people left the United States in 2025 (“self-deported” according to DHS), and an estimated 180,000 U.S. citizens emigrated. The Association of Americans Resident Overseas estimates 5.5 million Americans were living abroad as of October 2024, up from 5.4 million the prior year. In nearly all 27 EU member states, the number of Americans arriving to live and work is at a record high.The GIU notes long-term economic, political, and lifestyle concerns are contributing to rising interest in emigration among Americans. Gallup’s longitudinal tracking shows the baseline has shifted dramatically: the desire to emigrate ran at 10% to 11% under Bush and Obama, rose to 16% to 20% during the first Trump presidency, and by November 2025 stood at one in five Americans overall, with women aged 15–44 reaching 40% — up from 10% in 2014.
Renunciation statistics — the most precisely documented indicator of emigration intent — tell a complementary story of acceleration. Before 2009, fewer than 400 Americans renounced their citizenship annually. By 2024, that figure had reached 4,820, a 48% increase from 2023 and the third-highest annual total ever recorded. In the first quarter of 2025, 1,285 Americans expatriated — a 102% jump on the prior quarter. The global queue for renunciation appointments now exceeds 30,000 people.A significant further catalyst arrived on April 13, 2026, when the US State Department reduced the renunciation fee from $2,350 to $450, restoring it to pre-2015 levels following sustained legal pressure — a change widely expected to accelerate the trend. The pool of Americans who could act on this interest is larger than is widely understood. An estimated 7 to 10 million Americans already hold dual citizenship, while up to 30 million may qualify for ancestry-based European passports through countries including Italy, Ireland, Poland, Germany, and Hungary — options that have existed for years but which many Americans are only now discovering.The trend is also registering in passport demand. GCS’s Global Passport Index (GPI)— which tracks the travel freedom, lifestyle, and investment value of passports across more than 199 countries — shows the US falling from 1st place in 2021 to 14th in 2025, a decline
that reflects both reduced immigration into the country and the growing appeal of alternative citizenships among Americans seeking broader global mobility.“What the Global Passport Index captures that conventional economic data cannot is the gap between aggregate wealth and lived experience,” said Laura Madrid, Lead Researcher at the Global Citizen Solutions’ GIU. “The United States remains a high-income country by every traditional measure. But the structural pressures bearing down on ordinary Americans — rising poverty, persistent inflation in housing and healthcare, deepening political polarization, and a public safety crisis unlike anything seen in peer nations — are registering in people’s decisions about where to build their lives.”GIU research identifies several compounding pressures. The US Supplemental Poverty Measure reached 12.9% in 2023, its second consecutive annual increase, while CPI-U inflation ran at 3.0% year-on-year into early 2025. In 2023 alone, the country recorded weather and climate disasters totaling at least $92.9 billion in damages. On public safety, gun violence continues to set the US apart from every comparable high-income nation.“This is not the profile of people fleeing crisis,” Madrid added. “These are informed, often financially stable individuals and families making a deliberate calculation — that their money, their safety, and their quality of life will go further elsewhere.”
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that reflects both reduced immigration into the country and the growing appeal of alternative citizenships among Americans seeking broader global mobility.“What the Global Passport Index captures that conventional economic data cannot is the gap between aggregate wealth and lived experience,” said Laura Madrid, Lead Researcher at the Global Citizen Solutions’ GIU. “The United States remains a high-income country by every traditional measure. But the structural pressures bearing down on ordinary Americans — rising poverty, persistent inflation in housing and healthcare, deepening political polarization, and a public safety crisis unlike anything seen in peer nations — are registering in people’s decisions about where to build their lives.”GIU research identifies several compounding pressures. The US Supplemental Poverty Measure reached 12.9% in 2023, its second consecutive annual increase, while CPI-U inflation ran at 3.0% year-on-year into early 2025. In 2023 alone, the country recorded weather and climate disasters totaling at least $92.9 billion in damages. On public safety, gun violence continues to set the US apart from every comparable high-income nation.“This is not the profile of people fleeing crisis,” Madrid added. “These are informed, often financially stable individuals and families making a deliberate calculation — that their money, their safety, and their quality of life will go further elsewhere.”
Where Americans Are Going
Europe remains the most sought-after destination, with more than 1.5 million Americans now living across the continent. As of December 2023, the top EU and EFTA destinations for US nationals on residence permits were Germany (81,509), Spain (44,804), France (38,181), Italy (36,549), the Netherlands (33,107), Switzerland (19,579), and Portugal (13,948) — the vast majority on permits of one year or more, indicating longterm relocation rather than short stays.Portugal ranks first in GCS’s Global Retirement Index and Spain leads its Global Digital Nomad Index. Greece, Italy, and Malta are drawing significant numbers across income and lifestyle profiles. Italy’s ancestry citizenship route, historically one of the most soughtafter by Americans, was restricted by Law 74/2025 to children and grandchildren of Italian citizens — a change upheld by Italy’s Constitutional Court in March 2026 that blocks an estimated 80 million people previously eligible through earlier generations. The restriction has prompted some Americans to apply before additional policy changes take effect. Caribbean citizenship-by-investment programs continue to attract those seeking faster routes to a second passport and greater global mobility.To read the full briefing, visit: From Destination to Departure: America’s New Migration StoryAmid a surge in demand for practical guidance, GCS has updated its guide for Americans, on the 23 Best Countries to move to in 2026, covering digital nomad and passive income visas, Golden Visa investment routes, moving costs and living expenses.About Global Citizen Solutions
Global Citizen Solutions is a leading residency and citizenship planning advisory firm, helping high-net-worth clients and their families secure greater control over where they can live, travel, do business, and operate across jurisdictions.Find out more about the Think Global People and Think Women community and events.Subscribe to Relocate Extra, our monthly newsletter, to get all the latest international assignments and global mobility news.Relocate’s new Global Mobility Toolkit provides free information, practical advice and support for HR, global mobility managers and global teams operating overseas.
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