Lebanese nationality law

Lebanese nationality law governs the acquisition, transmission and loss of Lebanese citizenship. Lebanese citizenship is the status of being a citizen of Lebanon and it can be obtained by birth or naturalization.

Lebanese nationality is transmitted paternally (via father) (see Jus sanguinis). Therefore, a Lebanese man who holds Lebanese citizenship can automatically confer citizenship to his children and foreign wife (only if entered in the Civil Acts Register in the Republic of Lebanon). Under the current law, descendants of Lebanese emigrants can only receive citizenship from their father and women cannot pass on citizenship to their children or foreign spouses.

This patrilineal rule is structurally linked to the census regime. This regime is based on the only nationally published census in Lebanon, dated from 1932, in which Lebanese citizenship was established. From then on, citizenship could only be passed down patrilinially, rendering men the points of reference around which female citizenship is situated. Citizens are registered by extended patriarchal family serial numbers; women are recorded as daughters of fathers or wives of husbands, and cannot head families, reproducing both nationality and sectarian affiliation through the father.

On 12 November 2015, the Parliament of Lebanon approved a draft law that would allow "foreigners of Lebanese origin to get citizenship." On 5 May 2016, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants Gebran Bassil announced the beginning of the implementation of citizenship law for Lebanese diaspora.