Have any U.S. presidents or major presidential candidates ever had dual citizenship?

1. The constitutional baseline: eligibility and what’s not written

The U.S. Constitution requires the president be a "natural-born" citizen, at least 35, and a resident for 14 years; it does not expressly ban dual citizenship. Legal commentary and summaries used to analyze presidential eligibility treat dual nationality as not per se disqualifying ^[1]. That absence of an explicit prohibition is the reason scholars, plaintiffs and political opponents have relied on statutory and constitutional argument rather than a clear-text disqualification when disputing candidates' loyalties ^[1].

2. Historical reality: presidents and dual nationality — what the record shows

Available sources do not cite any U.S. president who served while documented as a legal dual citizen. Early presidents sometimes had foreign allegiances under period law, but today's sources do not list a sitting or past president who concurrently held a modern dual nationality while in office ^[1]. Assertions about founding presidents being “dual nationals” are invoked in political debates, but the sources in this set do not provide a firm list of presidents who held dual citizenship in the modern statutory sense ^{[4] [5]}.

3. Campaign-era controversies: candidates, birthplace and attacks

Modern presidential campaigns have repeatedly generated attacks and confusion about citizenship. High-profile examples include questions about Ted Cruz’s Canadian birth and resultant dual Canadian–U.S. citizenship by virtue of his birth in Calgary, and litigation or political attacks around other candidates’ origins; the natural-born question has been litigated or debated but generally does not rest on a simple ban on dual citizenship ^[1]. Media and political opponents have used dual-citizenship claims as campaign rhetoric despite the constitutional silence on the issue ^[1].

4. Policy shift under pressure: proposals to end or restrict dual citizenship

In 2025 a legislative shift emerged: Sen. Bernie Moreno introduced the Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025, a bill that would bar simultaneous U.S. and foreign citizenship and would deem failure to renounce foreign citizenship within a year as loss of U.S. citizenship ^{[3] [2]}. Reporting flags immediate constitutional and practical problems: legal analysts say the bill would conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment and established Supreme Court precedent that requires voluntary, affirmative relinquishment of citizenship, making the statute vulnerable to court challenge ^[3].

5. Executive and administrative actions: assertions and limits

Executive-branch moves and campaign rhetoric have further muddied the waters. Reports show attempts via executive orders and regulation to limit birthright citizenship or curb certain dual-citizenship effects; some measures have been blocked by courts and remain under appeal ^[6]. Fact-checks and news outlets also note exaggerated social-media claims that the president has already ended dual citizenship; those viral posts have been debunked as false or overstated ^[7].

6. Who would be affected — politics meets personal consequence

Coverage of the 2025 proposals emphasizes real-world stakes: high-profile families and millions of ordinary Americans could be forced to renounce second nationalities, and the bill’s automatic-expatriation mechanics would trigger tax and legal complexities for wealthy or internationally mobile citizens ^{[8] [3] [2]}. Journalists note the political incentives behind the push — appealing to nativist voters and reframing loyalty questions — and legal commentators see a likely court fight over constitutional protections ^{[3] [9]}.

7. Competing narratives and the reporting gap

Two clear narratives compete in these sources: one treats dual citizenship as legally permissible and widely accepted in practice; the other treats it as a threat to civic allegiance that should be ended by statute or executive action ^{[10] [3]}. The materials here document proposed laws, executive actions, and media fact-checks, but they do not provide an authoritative, source-by-source list of any U.S. president who held dual citizenship while serving; therefore definitive historical claims about presidents with modern dual nationality are not found in current reporting ^{[1] [4]}.

8. Bottom line for your question

Based on the supplied reporting and legal summaries, no president is cited here as having held and served with dual citizenship, and the Constitution does not explicitly forbid it — but the issue is now politically volatile, with congressional bills and administrative moves seeking to curtail or eliminate dual citizenship ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The path any law would face in the courts is well-documented as contested ^[3].