Imagine being an American, having a baby abroad, and learning your child has no citizenship anywhere on earth.

Imagine being an American, having a baby abroad, and learning your child has no citizenship anywhere on earth.

Not Emirati. Not American.

Just stateless.

Everyone loves the story of the glamorous expat life: tax-free income, warm weather, luxury towers, and private schools.

But almost no one talks about the legal void underneath it all.

In the Gulf, even after 20 or 30 years, your entire life still rests on a temporary visa tied to a job.

You can’t vote, can’t naturalize, and your children don’t acquire citizenship, not even if they’re born and raised there.

For Westerners, that usually doesn’t feel dangerous until life throws a curveball.

A job loss.

A medical crisis.

Or the unthinkable: two U.S. citizens who grew up entirely in the UAE have a baby and discover their child doesn’t qualify for any nationality.

Why? Because under U.S. law, a child born abroad to two American parents only becomes a citizen at birth if at least one parent has resided in the U.S.

If neither ever did, the child doesn’t qualify and can’t even apply for citizenship (Form N-600K) without already holding another nationality.

And since the UAE and its neighbors don’t grant citizenship by birth, the only way out may be to acquire another nationality first, either through citizenship by descent (like Irish, Italian, or Polish ancestry), or citizenship by investment (often $150,000+ via Caribbean or Turkish programs).

That passport then becomes the ticket to file the N-600K and finally obtain the U.S. citizenship the parents assumed their child already had.

For Jews living in Israel, however, this crisis rarely arises because under the Law of Return, even if the parents haven’t yet naturalized, they can apply for Israeli citizenship for their child at birth.

In the Gulf, no such safety net exists.

And until U.S. citizenship is approved and a Social Security Number issued, the child can’t even be claimed as a dependent on the parents’ U.S. tax return. 

It’s another small but painful reminder of how invisible a stateless child is in the eyes of every system.

Planning ahead for this is essential.

Before marriage or childbirth abroad, understand how your citizenship laws actually work.

Otherwise, what looks like a small technicality can turn into a life shattering legal crisis, the kind no embassy or paycheck can fix.

Behind the gloss, often expat life isn’t permanent. It’s a beautiful mirage built on conditional belonging.