Is naturalization mandatory?

Naturalization is voluntary in the United States. No federal law requires lawful permanent residents to apply for U.S. citizenship; permanent residents may live, work, and remain in the United States indefinitely with their green card without ever applying for naturalization. The decision to apply rests entirely with the individual permanent resident.

As of the mid-2020s, there are approximately 13 million lawful permanent residents in the United States, of whom about 9 million are estimated to be eligible to naturalize (having met the residence, physical presence, and other statutory requirements). USCIS naturalizes approximately 800,000 to 1 million people per year, and the total population of naturalized U.S. citizens exceeds 23 million.

The reasons permanent residents choose to naturalize include: the right to vote in federal, state, and most local elections; eligibility for federal employment that requires U.S. citizenship (much of federal employment, including most positions in the FBI, CIA, State Department, military officer corps, and certain Department of Defense roles); the ability to obtain a U.S. passport, which is widely accepted for international travel and provides U.S. consular protection abroad; eligibility for federal grants, scholarships, and benefits restricted to citizens; the ability to petition for the immigration of additional family members under section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (citizens can petition for parents, married adult children, and brothers and sisters; permanent residents can petition only for spouses and unmarried children); protection against deportation (citizens cannot be deported under any circumstance, while permanent residents can be removed for certain criminal offenses or immigration violations); the ability to transmit citizenship to children born abroad under section 322 of the Act; and the symbolic, civic, and emotional significance of becoming a citizen of the United States.

Reasons some permanent residents choose not to naturalize include: requirements of the country of origin (some countries do not permit dual citizenship and would terminate citizenship of nationals who naturalize elsewhere), military service obligations in the country of origin, family or business ties that require maintaining the original citizenship, hesitancy about the renunciation language in the Oath of Allegiance, and personal or cultural preferences.