As a national of any EU member state, you automatically hold EU citizenship, and with it a set of rights that let you live, work, and study in any of the 27 member states, vote in local and European Parliament elections wherever you reside in the Union, coordinate your social security across borders, ask any EU country’s embassy for help when your own is not represented, and bring close family with you when you move. These EU citizen rights sit on top of your national citizenship rather than replacing it, and they are set out in Article 20 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.1EUR-Lex. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – Article 20
Who Counts as an EU Citizen
There is no separate application. The moment you hold the nationality of a member state, you are a citizen of the Union, and you lose that status if you lose the underlying nationality. Each country writes its own rules on who qualifies for nationality, whether by birth on its territory, descent, or naturalization after a period of legal residence, and those residency periods generally range from about five to ten years depending on the country.2European Parliament. Acquisition and Loss of Citizenship in EU Member States: Overview and Key Issues
The 27 member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.3European Union. EU Countries
British nationals lost EU citizenship when the United Kingdom left the EU on January 31, 2020. UK citizens who were already living in an EU country before the end of the transition period kept certain residence and social security rights under the Withdrawal Agreement, but they no longer hold the broader rights covered here.
Living and Moving Across the EU
You can enter, live, and work in any of the 27 member states without a visa or work permit. For stays under three months, a valid passport or national ID card is enough.4European Commission. Free Movement and Residence
For longer stays, the host country can ask that you fall into one of a few categories: employed or self-employed there, enrolled as a student, or financially self-sufficient with comprehensive health insurance. The purpose is to ensure new arrivals do not immediately draw on the host country’s social assistance system.4European Commission. Free Movement and Residence
After five continuous years of legal residence in another EU country, you gain permanent residence. The conditions attached to your stay fall away at that point, and the host country can only remove you in narrow circumstances.4European Commission. Free Movement and Residence
Schengen Is Not the Same as the EU
People mix these up. The Schengen Area removes passport checks at internal borders; the EU is a political and legal union. As of 2025, 25 of the 27 EU countries are in Schengen, along with Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, which are not EU members. Bulgaria and Romania joined in January 2025. Ireland has opted out because of its common travel area with the United Kingdom. Cyprus is not yet in.5European Commission. Schengen Area
Your right to live and work in all 27 member states holds regardless of Schengen. What Schengen changes is whether you face passport checks when crossing an internal border.
Working in Another Member State
EU law prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality within its scope.6EUR-Lex. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – Article 18 In practical terms, an EU citizen working in another member state has to be treated the same as a local worker on pay, working conditions, dismissal protections, access to training, and social and tax advantages such as family benefits or public transport discounts.7European Commission. Equal Treatment
Employers cannot cap the number of workers they hire from other EU countries or use discriminatory recruitment criteria. They can require language skills the job actually needs, but the level demanded must be reasonable, and they cannot insist on one specific diploma as the only acceptable proof.7European Commission. Equal Treatment
Recognition of Professional Qualifications
Doctors, architects, nurses, pharmacists, and veterinarians benefit from automatic recognition across the EU because training standards for those professions have been harmonized. For other regulated professions such as teaching, translation, or real estate, the host country evaluates your credentials under a general recognition system and may require a test or an adaptation period before you can practice. Some trade professions qualify for automatic recognition based on professional experience alone.8European Commission. Recognition of Professional Qualifications in Practice
Social Security and Pensions Across Borders
If your working life spans several member states, the years you build up in each one still count. The host country’s social security system has to treat periods of employment and insurance completed in any other member state as if they had been completed at home.9EUR-Lex. Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the Coordination of Social Security Systems
That aggregation rule matters most for pensions. Someone with ten years of contributions in Spain and ten in the Netherlands might not meet either country’s minimum threshold on its own, but under coordination rules both countries count the combined twenty years when deciding eligibility.
Cash benefits are exportable. A country cannot reduce, suspend, or withdraw a benefit just because you moved. A French pension keeps arriving if you retire to Portugal.9EUR-Lex. Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the Coordination of Social Security Systems
You are covered by only one country’s social security legislation at a time, normally the one where you work. If you work in two or more member states at once, the rules assign you to one system based on where you live and where the bulk of your activity takes place.9EUR-Lex. Regulation (EC) No 883/2004 on the Coordination of Social Security Systems
Voting Where You Live
If you live in an EU country other than your own, you can vote and stand as a candidate in that country’s municipal elections and in European Parliament elections on the same terms as its own nationals.10European Commission. Right to Vote and to Stand as a Candidate at Municipal Elections A Polish citizen living in Belgium can vote in Belgian local elections and for Belgian candidates to the European Parliament without giving up Polish nationality or acquiring Belgian nationality.
Two things to note. If voting is compulsory in the host country and you register on the electoral roll, you are legally required to vote, just like the locals.11Your Europe. Municipal Elections And national parliamentary elections are generally not open to non-nationals; most member states reserve those for their own citizens.
Petitions, the Ombudsman, and Writing in Your Own Language
Any EU citizen can petition the European Parliament on a matter that falls within the EU’s areas of responsibility. A petition can be a complaint, a request, or an observation, submitted individually or jointly, and EU-based organizations can petition as well.12European Parliament. Petitions
You can also complain to the European Ombudsman about poor administration by any EU institution, body, office, or agency, except the Court of Justice acting in its judicial role. The Ombudsman investigates and reports but cannot overturn decisions.13EUR-Lex. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – Article 228
You have the right to write to any EU institution in any of the EU’s 24 official languages and receive a reply in the same language.14EUR-Lex. Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union – Article 24
Help From Any EU Embassy Outside the Union
If you are in a country outside the EU where your home country has no embassy or consulate, you can go to the embassy of any other EU member state and ask for help on the same terms it would give its own nationals.15European Commission. Consular Protection
This is a bigger deal than it sounds. Smaller member states like Luxembourg or Malta have limited diplomatic networks. A Maltese citizen stranded in a remote part of South America can ask the nearest French, German, or Spanish embassy for emergency travel documents, help after an arrest, or evacuation during a crisis.16European External Action Service. Consular Protection for EU Citizens
Bringing Non-EU Family With You
When you exercise your right to live in another member state, certain close family members can join or accompany you regardless of their nationality, under the Citizens’ Rights Directive.17EUR-Lex. Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council
Qualifying family members include:
- Your spouse, where the marriage is recognized in the member state where it was celebrated.
- Your registered partner, but only if the host member state treats registered partnerships as equivalent to marriage under its own law.
- Your children and your spouse’s children under 21, or older if financially dependent on you.
- Your dependent parents and grandparents, and those of your spouse, if financially dependent on you.
These family members derive their residence rights from yours. If you meet the conditions for residing in the host country, they can reside with you and can also work there. They will typically need to apply for a residence card, and the host country cannot charge them more than it charges its own nationals for comparable identity documents.18European Parliamentary Research Service. Free Movement of EU Citizens and Their Family Members: An Overview
One catch trips people up regularly. These derivative rights only activate when you move to a different member state. A Spanish citizen living in Spain with a non-EU spouse is not covered by the Citizens’ Rights Directive; that spouse’s status is governed by Spanish immigration law, which can be considerably more restrictive.