Expatriation delay rumor is not true
I got an email from a correspondent (thanks E) who is considering giving up his U.S. citizenship. He said in his email:
I have heard that there is a two-year wait/processing time to renounce US Citizenship. Is that correct?
Nope. Not true.
In order to give up your citizenship, you will make an appointment at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate. You go through an interview and you sign a bunch of paperwork. Your effective date for giving up the citizenship is that day. It takes maybe four or five months for the final written confirmation to come back to you by mail.
The hard problem is getting yourself on the calendar at your favorite Embassy or Consulate. Many have insane calendars–fully booked up, far into the future. Switzerland is very difficult. London, too, I’ve heard. And I’ve heard that the Canadian Embassy and Consulates are clogged. On the other hand, my recent rumor mill tells me that Frankfurt, Sydney, Singapore, and Berlin are relatively easy to deal with and get on the calendar.
I think the rumor about a two-year wait refers to the time delay involved in getting the appointment on the calendar at a particular Embassy or Consulate.
You are not required to go to the Embassy or Consulate closest to you. You can go anywhere in the world.
My suggestion: get on the phone and start calling Embassies and Consulates worldwide until you get yourself an appointment. Then book a flight and go.
There is a distinction between renouncing and relinquishing citizenship. I found that because I was relinquishing that it took less than a month to get an appointment. The moment to relinquish is at taking foreign citizenship or taking a pledge to a foreign power (there are a few other ways too). Once having done an expatriating act, one must inform the US State Department, usually at a consulate, and they will make you take oaths indicating that you understand what it means to lose citizenship and that you did the act with the intention of relinquishing. A person can renounce at any time but the US consulate usually requires two visits and $450. I relinquished at the moment of taking foreign citizenship and managed to talk the consulate into a single visit to make the necessary oaths and deposit the required papers. They did not charge $450 to tell them that I had relinquished; but they have not issued a certificate of loss of citizenship yet, so I do not know if they will charge me for the certificate! When relinqishing, the IRS counts the date of the visit to the US consulate to inform them as the date of loss of citizenship (thus creating a contradiction in the law), but they will not acknowledge that loss until you file the forms they require. But now that the Canadian government has come out with their statement that they won’t collect for the IRS from Canadian citizens, it probably doesn’t matter if you file the final forms (provided your assets are all in Canada).