Your grandmother was born in Ireland. That may be all the visa you need.
An Irish-born grandparent can make you an Irish citizen. Once you are registered, you can live in Ireland for good, with your family, and the move becomes a matter of planning.
Most Americans who look at Ireland run into the same wall: a work permit tied to an employer, a student visa, or a retirement permission that has to be renewed. An Irish passport takes all of that off the table. As an Irish citizen you live and work in Ireland on the same footing as everyone born there, and as a citizen of the European Union you can live anywhere else in the EU too. For many Americans the door to that passport is a grandparent.
Your Irish line
Everything starts with one question: who in your family was born on the island of Ireland? Northern Ireland counts, so a grandfather born in Belfast is as good as one born in Cork.
| Born in Ireland | Your position | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Your parent | Irish citizen since birth | Apply for the Irish passport |
| Your grandparent | Irish citizen from the day you are registered | Apply to the Foreign Births Register |
| Your great-grandparent | Eligible only if your parent was registered before you were born | Check your parent’s registration date first |
Source: Department of Foreign Affairs, Registering a foreign birth, ireland.ie. Retrieved 9 November 2026.
The full rules, with the certificates for each generation, are on our page on Irish citizenship by descent. This page picks up where that one ends: once the citizenship is in reach, how does an American family actually move?
The Foreign Births Register
The register is kept by the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. You apply online, then print the form, sign it in front of a witness and mail it with your original documents. The fee is €278 for an adult and €153 for anyone under 18, and the department currently takes about 12 months. Your citizenship starts on the day your name goes on the register.
For an American file, three things decide how smoothly it runs:
- Long-form certificates. The department wants original civil birth certificates that show the parents’ names, for you, your Irish-descended parent and your grandparent. In the US that means the long-form or certified copy from the state vital records office, not the short abstract many states issue by default.
- The right witness. Your witness must know you personally and must not be a relative. The department’s list includes a notary public, a lawyer, a doctor, a police officer, a teacher and a bank manager, so most Americans find one in their own town.
- Irish records. Your grandparent’s Irish birth certificate comes from the civil register in Ireland. If the family only has a baptismal record, start that search first, because it sits in front of the twelve months.
The filing itself is yours. What matters for the move is the timing: the twelve months of the register run while you plan the move, and nobody should sell a house in Ohio before the certificate is in the mail.
From passport to address
With the registration certificate you apply for your first Irish passport, and from then on you travel to Ireland as an Irish citizen. There is no residence permit to file, no stamp to register and no renewal date. What remains is the practical move, and it follows a clear order:
- Where you will live. Renting in Ireland is hard everywhere; buying outside Dublin is far more workable than most Americans expect. Our pages on property in Ireland and on the South East show why.
- Your PPS number. The Irish personal public service number unlocks work, health care, banking and taxes. The order of your first weeks in Ireland starts there.
- Your tax position. You become tax resident in Ireland and you stay a US taxpayer. That needs planning before you leave the US, not after.
- Schools and health care for the family, sorted before the first school year starts.
Your spouse and children
Your American spouse becomes a family member of an Irish citizen. Ireland’s immigration service runs a family route for exactly this case: a US spouse tells the immigration officer on arrival that they are coming to join family, and then registers within 90 days. The conditions are on the immigration service’s pages for joining an Irish national, and they are worth checking against your situation before you book the flights.
For your children, the date of your registration matters. A child born after your name went on the register can be registered through you. A child born before it can claim only through their own grandparent line, if there is one. Our page on Irish citizenship for children works through the cases.
Taxes come with you
An Irish passport changes where you may live. It leaves your US tax status exactly where it was: the United States taxes its citizens wherever they live, so you file a US return every year from Ireland, plus the reports on your foreign accounts. Ireland taxes you as soon as you are resident there.
Whether Ireland taxes only what you bring into the country depends on your domicile, and that is where an Irish citizen moving “home” needs care. Someone who settles in Ireland for good can acquire an Irish domicile, and with it the right to the remittance basis ends. The two systems, and how they fit together, are on our page on US taxes while living in Ireland.
I made this move myself
In the summer of 2014 it became clear that my children and I had to leave the United States, at least for a few years: our visa had run out. For a long time I played with the idea of going back to England. At the same time I had started thinking about Ireland. After six weeks of weighing, reading and talking to people, I chose Ireland. I had never been there before.
Four things decided it: the schools, the tax system, the calm and the safety. In August 2014 we set foot on Irish soil for the first time. I lived in the country, at the edge of a very small town, and my expectations were met, only differently than I had thought. One thing I have to add today: the Ireland I moved to in 2014 was a bargain. Housing is tight now, and anyone who moves should plan time and budget for finding a home. The whole story is on my year in Lismore.
More for Americans moving to Ireland
Your move from the US, both sides at once
Your Irish arrival and your US exit, planned together: PPS numbers, dom and non-dom planning, your state residency exit, Social Security and pension position, a fund review and your US reporting set up. One fee per household, $7,500.