Americans Abroad

Both can conscript you for military service in times of crisis, both can tax you, depending on the circumstances, and Germany, at least, has restriction on citizenship if your German citizenship is acquired and your second nationality. They often make adults choose at age 18 or 21 if German citizenship was acquired later. If you have a German parent and have been both from birth, that is one circumstance where Germany and the USA let you keep both for life. My daughters are in exactly that situation. The older one lives in the USA and is paid there, so she only has to pay US taxes, but the younger one lives in Germany and is paid there, so she has to fill out both tax returns every year.

The advantage is that they can live and work in either country at will. The older one will have trouble if she decides to move back to Germany without having paid a dime into the national retirement fund ("Rentenkasse&quot , and would need either extremely expensive health insurance or a steady job that would give it to her. My wife took many years off from work to raise our daughters, and because of that is looking at maybe $1000 a month in pension money (she was a lowly social worker) and either expensive or minimal health insurance. Without me, she'd be a near poverty case.