A record number of Americans applied for British citizenship in the first quarter of 2025, coinciding with the start of Donald Trump’s second term as US President, according to new data from the UK Home Office.
Between January and March, 1,931 US citizens submitted applications for UK citizenship, marking the highest quarterly total since records began in 2004 and a 12% rise on the previous quarter. The surge follows a similar uptick during the final three months of 2024, which aligned with Trump’s re-election.
The figures point to growing interest among Americans in establishing long-term residence in Britain, with a record 5,500 US nationals granted settled status in 2024 — up 20% on the previous year. Settled status grants the right to live, work, and study in the UK indefinitely and can serve as a pathway to citizenship.
The last comparable spike in US-to-UK migration came in 2020, during Trump’s first term and at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when discontent over the US political climate, public health response, and cross-border tax burdens drove many Americans abroad.
That year also saw a record number of Americans formally renounce their US citizenship, with more than 5,800 giving up their passports in the first half of 2020 alone — nearly triple the number for all of 2019, according to figures compiled by Bambridge Accountants, a firm specialising in international tax.
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