Millions of people across the world carry Slovak ancestry - the descendants of miners, farmers, and dreamers who left the heart of Europe generations ago. Their stories live on in Pittsburgh steel towns, the Canadian prairies, and the Argentinian coastlines. Yet until recently, their connection to Slovakia remained sentimental rather than legal - a heritage without a home.
That is now changing.
The Slovak Living Abroad Certificate (SLA) was originally created to reconnect Slovakia with its dispersed kin - not in North America, but much closer to home. The policy emerged in the early 2000s as a means to recognize ethnic Slovaks living in the former Yugoslavia (Serbia), Hungary, and Romania — communities separated by shifting borders and history’s cartography. The certificate allowed them to live, work, and study in Slovakia, without the burden of applying for a visa.
It was a modest but meaningful gesture: a bridge for those who had remained Slovak in spirit and culture, even across a 300-year time-gap.
Now, something unexpected is happening. The same certificate once designed for Central Europe’s borderlands is being embraced by Slovak descendants across the Atlantic. For the first time, significant numbers of applications are arriving from the United States, Canada and even Argentina -from families whose Slovak ancestors emigrated some 120 years ago.
This new wave represents a quiet revolution in how Slovakia connects with its diaspora.
Although the most desirable offer is the coveted EU passport, made possible through the legal pathway of Slovak Citizenship by Descent (CBD), not everyone qualifies - their genealogical link may simply reach too far into the past.
While Slovak Citizenship by Descent casts a wide net, it has its limits. Eligibility ends at the third generation (the great-grandparent level), and the anchor ancestor must be able to demonstrate Czechoslovak nationality - a tough feat for those whose forebears left in the late 1800s under the rule of Austria-Hungary.
This is where the Slovak Living Abroad Certificate (SLA) offers an alternative path.
Unlike Citizenship by Descent, the SLA has no generational cut-off and no requirement to prove historical nationality. It welcomes all descendants of ethnic Slovaks, allowing them to be officially recognized by the Slovak Republic - without a limit and without expiration.
In return, the certificate offers something substantial: the right to live, work, study, and even establish a business in Slovakia. After three years of continuous residence, SLA holders may apply for an expedited path to citizenship - transforming heritage into a tangible future, and ultimately, into their very own European gateway to freedom: the Slovak (EU) passport.
It’s a quietly visionary policy- and not without precedent.
Poland has long offered a similar status known as the Karta Polaka, or Polish Card. Introduced in 2007, the card extends privileges to ethnic Poles living mainly in the east - Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania- giving them access to education, employment, and later, citizenship. It was an early exercise in soft power, aimed at reclaiming historical communities on Poland’s periphery.
Slovakia’s version is gentler in tone and broader in reach. Where the Karta Polaka asserts influence, the SLA extends an invitation. Its spirit is less geopolitical and more personal. It isn’t about reclaiming populations, but about rekindling connection - allowing Slovaks abroad to rediscover a sense of belonging in the land of their ancestors.
Across continents, countries, and generations, anyone descended from a Slovak - no matter how many generations back - may qualify for the SLA certificate, and with it, gain the opportunity to live, work, and build a business in Slovakia.
