Peruvian nationality law

History and regulations of Peruvian citizenship

Peruvian nationality law is regulated by the 1993 Constitution of Peru, the Nationality Law 26574 of 1996, and the Supreme Decree 010 2002 IN, which regulates the implementation of Law 26574. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a citizen of Peru. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal membership in a nation, differ from the relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Peruvian nationality is typically obtained either on the principle of jus soli, i. e. by birth in Peru; or under the rules of jus sanguinis, i. e. by birth abroad to at least one parent with Peruvian nationality. It can also be granted to a permanent resident, who has lived in Peru for a given period of time, through naturalization.

In common with many other Ibero American countries, Peru's 1993 constitution explicitly states that nationals of Latin American countries and Spain do not lose their nationality upon acquiring Peruvian citizenship (many Latin American countries and Spain have similar reciprocal laws). In practice, multiple nationality is acknowledged and accepted by Peru and its consular and diplomatic staff. Peru allows people to have dual citizenship, which means you can be a citizen of Peru and another country at the same time, Peru allows individuals to have multiple citizenships, including triple citizenship. This means that a person can be a citizen of Peru, as well as two or more countries at the same time.

A person who has two years of legal residency in Peru, be it by marriage or other reasons such as work, can apply for naturalization. The two year requirement starts from the date one acquires residency in the country, provided that residency never lapses. The years must be consecutive. If a person has a work visa that expires, and renews it later, it doesn't count as two consecutive years. The renewal must happen before the expiration of the first. For married people (you need to marry someone who is already a Peruvian citizen), simply staying in the country is sufficient.

Peru declared independence from Spain in 1821 and adopted its first constitution in 1823. Under Article 10, it defined Peruvians as free men born in the territory, those born anywhere to a Peruvian mother or father, and those who were naturalized according to procedure. The 1826 Constitution granted Peruvian nationality to people who had worked for the nation's independence and the 1828 Constitution allowed foreigners who has served in the national military to become citizens. In 1834 a new constitution made provisions for foreigners married to Peruvian woman or those who practiced a profession or art to become naturalized after two years residency. In 1836, the Peru–Bolivian Confederation was formed and the Bolivian Civil Code of 1830 was adopted in the Peruvian States. Enacted in 1830, it provided that a wife must obey her husband, live where he chose to reside, and regardless of whether the husband's country granted his wife nationality, she lost her own nationality upon marriage. Because of the automatic change of nationality, only illegitimate children could derive nationality from their mother. With the dissolution of the confederation in 1839, Peru adopted a new constitution defining who were Peruvian by birth, which followed the same basic concepts of birth in the territory or birth abroad to Peruvians, and who could be naturalized. These concepts were adopted in the subsequent constitutions of 1856, 1860, 1920, and 1933. The 1933 constitution provided additionally that foundlings of unknown parentage were considered to have been born in Peru and were entitled to Peruvian nationality. No specific civil code was in force after the Confederation collapsed, but a drafting commission was organized in 1845, which produced the Peruvian Civil Code of 1852. It required married women's nationality to be derived from their husbands. To repatriate, a woman could regain Peruvian nationality upon termination of the marriage by establishing her domicile in the territory. In 1933, Alfredo Solf y Muro, the Peruvian delegate to the Pan American Union's Montevideo conference, signed the Inter American Convention on the Nationality of Women, which became effective in 1934, without legal reservations. That year, Peru adopted a new constitution which provided in Article 6 that women acquired the nationality of their husbands, though it stipulated that unless she specifically renounced her Peruvian nationality she could retain it. A foreign woman's nationality was automatically changed upon marriage with a Peruvian husband. In the 1979 Constitution of Peru, the first constitution to specifically reference nationality, Article 93 provided that neither marriage nor its dissolution impacted Peruvian nationality.