Why Do US Citizens Play by Their Own Rulebook

There’s a moment every American abroad eventually hits: sitting in a café in Lisbon or Taipei, chatting easily with a local, and then saying the sentence that ends the small talk — ‘Yeah, I still have to file taxes back home.’ The follow-up is always the same. But you don’t even live there. That one exchange explains more about US citizenship than any civics class. It is a status that behaves differently from almost every other citizenship on Earth, and the reasons are a mix of history, war, and one very stubborn tax code.

So why do US citizens live under rules the rest of the world finds odd — or, depending on who you ask, plainly unfair? Here is the honest answer, rule by rule.

A Passport You Didn’t Choose, With Rules You Can’t Simply Leave

Start with birth. The US is one of roughly 30 countries that hand out citizenship to anyone born on the soil, no questions asked. The rule comes from the 14th Amendment, written in 1868 to settle the status of formerly enslaved people, and it was locked in by the Supreme Court in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, when the Court ruled that a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a US citizen.

Most of Europe and Asia work the opposite way. Citizenship passes through blood, not birthplace. A Japanese couple’s baby born in Ohio is Japanese. An American couple’s baby born in Tokyo is American. That asymmetry is why debates over birth tourism never quite die in Washington, and why a passport can arrive as a surprise: you can be a US citizen your whole life without ever choosing it, applying for it, or realising it — until a bank or a tax form finds you first.

The Tax Return That Follows You Around the Planet

Now the part that genuinely shocks people. The US is one of the only major economies that taxes its citizens on worldwide income regardless of where they live. Move to Berlin, work for a German employer, pay German taxes — you still file a US return every year. The other country most often named with the same policy is Eritrea, which tells you how small this club really is.

In practice, most Americans abroad don’t end up owing Washington anything. The foreign earned income exclusion shelters roughly $130,000 of foreign wages for 2025, and the foreign tax credit wipes out US liability on income already taxed abroad. But ‘don’t owe’ is not the same as ‘don’t file.’ The paperwork doesn’t care that you paid someone else. And a second form — the FBAR, required when your foreign accounts together top $10,000 at any point in the year — carries penalties that startle even careful people.

Things tightened sharply in 2010 with FATCA, a law meant to catch wealthy tax dodgers. Its side effect was dramatic: banks in Zurich, Singapore, and Toronto began closing the accounts of US-born customers rather than deal with the reporting. Ordinary teachers and retirees discovered that their passport had become a compliance problem.

Summons, Draft Cards, and Other Mail That Chases You

Citizenship isn’t only about rights. A jury summons can land on an address you left a decade ago, because many states pull juror names from voter registration and driver records. Answering it from overseas is rarely possible, and ignoring it can mean a fine. Meanwhile, men between 18 and 25 are still required to register with Selective Service within 30 days of their eighteenth birthday. The draft ended in 1973; the registration never did.

Skipping it is not a trivial oversight. It can block federal student aid, federal employment, and in some states a driver’s licence. The odd logic behind it all is that US citizenship is defined by membership rather than location — the obligations travel with the person, not the address.

Why Voting Feels Harder Than It Looks From Outside

Americans vote more often than almost anyone else and with more obstacles. There is no single national register. Fifty states run fifty rulebooks with their own deadlines, ID requirements, and purge schedules. Primaries add another layer of decisions that most democracies hand to party members instead. And the Electoral College means a citizen’s vote for president is weighted by where they live rather than counted equally nationwide.

So no — US citizens are not unusually apathetic. They are navigating a system deliberately designed to be decentralised. Overseas citizens vote absentee under a federal law that protects them, but the ballot still has to come from their last US address, and it has to arrive on time.

The $2,350 Breakup Fee

If it all sounds like a lot, there is an exit — an expensive one. Renouncing US citizenship costs $2,350, the highest fee anywhere; it was $450 before 2014. Anyone with a net worth above roughly $2 million or a high average tax bill may also face an exit tax on unrealised gains, as if they sold everything on the way out the door.

Renunciations spike whenever a new reporting rule lands. The people doing it are rarely dramatic about it. They want to open a local bank account, invest in a small business, hold public office in their adopted country, or simply stop paying an accountant every spring for returns they’ll never owe on.

Living With It: A Short Field Guide

If you carry this passport, a few habits make the whole thing manageable. File every year, even at zero. Learn whether the country you live in has a totalisation agreement with the US, so your Social Security contributions aren’t doubled. Keep clean records of your account balances and your days in the country. And if you ever plan to renounce, get professional advice years in advance — the timing of a house sale or a business exit matters enormously.

Strip away the paperwork and the answer to the original question is quieter than it looks. US citizens live by their own rulebook because a young country built its idea of belonging on soil rather than ancestry, then attached obligations to it that no border can cancel. It is generous and demanding at the same time — which is exactly why the rest of the world keeps asking.

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