Dimension

What it costs to leave

How free a person is to leave: whether and on what conditions they can give up their citizenship, and whether leaving is taxed. Leaving is the other half of compulsion: an arrangement a person can walk away from cheaply compels less than one they cannot. Each feature is read from the statute and placed on a written scale, with the articles, how sure the reader is, and whether a second person has checked it.

Version 1. Defined by: An example in Solon's configuration (version 1, 2026-11-09), coded from statutes. Not an index.

What the law says

The statute's own terms, including what they work out to for a typical case.

  • Giving up citizenship

  • Tax on leaving

What happens in practice

Enforcement, prosecution, compliance and tolerance: what is done, which can differ from what is written.

No series yet. What leaving takes in practice: how many people give up their citizenship each year (the United States publishes the names quarterly in the Federal Register), how long a release takes, and how often one is refused.

What results

What follows for people and society: revenue, prices, availability, how free people say they are.

No series yet. What follows: emigration of citizens by year, from statistical offices.

Coded from the law

Each feature is read from the statute itself and placed on a written scale. A coding is a judgement and can be wrong, so it shows what it was read from, how sure the reader is and why, what it leaves open, who coded it, and whether a second person has checked it.

Giving up citizenship

Can a citizen give up their citizenship, and on what conditions?

  1. 0 · By declaration: A citizen who holds or will acquire another citizenship may give theirs up by their own declaration, with no further condition in the law.
  2. 1 · On stated conditions: A citizen may give it up only on further conditions the law states (living abroad, making the declaration abroad, a fee), and once they are met the law does not leave the outcome to an authority's discretion.
  3. 2 · At an authority's discretion: Release is decided by an authority that the law allows to refuse it on grounds beyond avoiding statelessness (unfulfilled duties to the state, the state's interests).
  4. 3 · No way out: The law provides no way for a citizen to give up their citizenship.
Cases already decided
  • A refusal that only prevents statelessness does not count as discretion: international law expects it, and every point allows it.
  • Losing citizenship as a penalty (deprivation) is a different feature and is not coded here.
  • Where the law offers two ways out, the coding takes the one least burdened, and the reading names both.

Rubric version 1. Solon's configuration (version 1, 2026-11-09), written for the compulsion and exit dimensions.

Nothing coded yet.

Tax on leaving

Does the law tax a person because they give up their citizenship or their residence?

  1. 0 · No tax on leaving: The tax law sets no tax triggered by giving up citizenship or residence.
  2. 1 · On some assets: Some assets (for example large shareholdings) are treated as sold when a person leaves, and the gain is taxed.
  3. 2 · On all assets: All of a person's property is treated as sold when they give up citizenship or long-term residence, and the gain above an exclusion is taxed.
Cases already decided
  • A place is coded 0 only from a reading of its tax act's provisions on departure as a whole; not finding an exit tax in one article is not enough, and such a place is left uncoded.
  • A threshold that exempts most people does not change the point; who is caught is stated in the reading.

Rubric version 1. Solon's configuration (version 1, 2026-11-09), written for the compulsion and exit dimensions.

Nothing coded yet.

A layer is only as good as the series in it. Where a layer has none, the dimension is silent about it rather than guessing.

Read these figures with help

The facts below are worked out by program from this page's figures, with no AI. The explanation, if you ask for one, is written by an AI from these facts only, and is checked against them before you see it.

The facts, in plain words

  1. F1What it costs to leave: How free a person is to leave: whether and on what conditions they can give up their citizenship, and whether leaving is taxed. Leaving is the other half of compulsion: an arrangement a person can walk away from cheaply compels less than one they cannot. Each feature is read from the statute and placed on a written scale, with the articles, how sure the reader is, and whether a second person has checked it. Source: An example in Solon's configuration (version 1, 2026-11-09), coded from statutes. Not an index.
  2. F2No series yet for what happens in practice. It would be filled by: What leaving takes in practice: how many people give up their citizenship each year (the United States publishes the names quarterly in the Federal Register), how long a release takes, and how often one is refused.
  3. F3No series yet for what results. It would be filled by: What follows: emigration of citizens by year, from statistical offices.