In 2023, Nepal’s Supreme Court removed a sitting member of Parliament from office because he hadn’t properly completed the process to reclaim Nepali citizenship after renouncing a foreign one. This law has teeth.
Section 10(1) of the Citizenship Act, 2006 is described by commentators as a “total prohibition” on dual nationality: a Nepali citizen’s citizenship lapses automatically upon acquiring a foreign one, for adults and minors alike. Your Nepali citizenship certificate becomes void at that moment. Germany’s 2024 reform doesn’t change any of this — a Nepali citizen naturalising in Germany today still automatically loses Nepali citizenship.
Reacquiring Nepali citizenship later, after renouncing a foreign one, is not automatic — it needs a formal application. The 2023 parliamentary case shows what happens when someone assumes it’s automatic and doesn’t complete the process: removal from elected office, despite having genuinely renounced the foreign citizenship.
Non-Resident Nepali (NRN) status — available to former citizens of Nepali descent and up to three generations of their descendants — grants residence, property and business rights but explicitly no political rights: no voting, no candidacy. A 2023 amendment reportedly extends a limited dual-citizenship-adjacent status to NRNs, still without voting rights — genuinely contested even among Nepali legal commentators, so treat this specific extension as evolving rather than settled.