Polish and Romanian Citizenship Lawyers Charge $5,000 to $10,000. Here's What You Actually Get for a Fraction of That.

I got quoted $5,000 per person for my Romanian citizenship case. For Poland, the firms I researched in the US and Canada ranged from $6,000 to $10,000 per person. Both numbers were for a straightforward great-grandparent case. Nothing legally complicated, nothing in dispute.

I didn't hire either firm. I filed both applications myself. This post is the math I wish someone had shown me first: what a law firm's fee actually buys you, what a citizenship consultant's fee buys you, and what the same outcome costs when you cut the professional markup down to size.

What a Law Firm's Fee Actually Buys You

This isn't a lawyers-are-a-scam post. A law firm's fee pays for legal representation and their time interpreting your specific case under the law. In genuinely complex situations, prior denials, contested lineage, a real legal dispute over eligibility, that expertise is worth paying for. I'd tell you to hire one myself if your case looked like that.

Here's the part that doesn't get said out loud: most great-grandparent citizenship cases aren't legally complex. They're document-intensive. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, apostilles, translations, consulate paperwork, all in the right order. That's coordination work, not legal interpretation. A law firm's fee prices legal expertise into a case that mostly needs project management.

The Three Ways to Get the Same Outcome

Whatever path you take, the third-party costs (apostilles, certified translations, archive fees, government filing fees) are the same. Those typically run $500 to $1,500 per case regardless of who you hire, because a translator or a government office charges what they charge. The only real variable is the professional fee sitting on top.

Here's what that fee looks like at each level with European Roots Consulting:

Roadmap Call, $299. A 45-minute call where I map your entire case: the exact documents you need, in the right order, a written cost estimate before you spend anything, and an honest read on whether your case is standard or actually needs a lawyer. If you move forward with Tier 1 or Tier 2 afterward, this fee credits toward it.

Guided Process (Tier 1), $1,500 plus third-party costs. I walk you through every step and review your work at each stage. You do the legwork, gathering documents, dealing with archives, but you're never guessing at what's next or whether you did it right.

Done For You (Tier 2), $3,250 plus third-party costs. I handle it. Document gathering across every generation and country, translator and genealogist coordination, the consulate-ready package. You sign what needs signing and show up to your appointment.

Document Retrieval, $99 Basic or $250 to $350 White Glove. For people who've handled most of their own case and just need one hard-to-get document tracked down.

If you're filing as a family, each additional adult gets 25% off, and anyone under 18 files free. That adds up fast when it's you, a sibling, and a parent, which is exactly the situation I was in myself. I've written separately about what actually changes when a family files together, including the math on that discount.

So How Does the Math Actually Compare?

Take a single applicant with a standard great-grandparent case. Third-party costs land around $500 to $1,500 no matter who you hire. Add the Done For You tier, my most comprehensive service, and total cost lands at roughly $3,750 to $4,750. Compare that to the $5,000 to $10,000 I was personally quoted for the same document gathering, the same translations, the same consulate-ready package, and you're paying meaningfully less even at my top tier.

The Guided Process brings it down further, into the $2,000 to $3,000 range, if you're willing to do the legwork yourself with me checking your work. The Roadmap Call alone, if you're comfortable running the process solo afterward, can mean your total cost stays under $2,000 including third-party fees.

For a real point of comparison, one of the larger generalist firms in this space, EuroPassport, publishes a Romania starting price of $6,000 for the first adult applicant. That's a published number, not a quote I'm estimating, and it lines up with what I was told directly. My Done For You tier covers the same scope, document gathering, translator coordination, a consulate-ready package, for close to $1,500 to $2,500 less per person once third-party costs are included on both sides.

Your dollar goes further because the underlying third-party costs don't change based on who you hire. The only thing that changes is how much you pay someone to manage the process for you. That's the entire gap between a law firm's quote, a generalist firm's published price, and mine.

When a Lawyer Actually Is the Right Call

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't give legal advice. I won't pretend a consultant can replace one when the situation genuinely calls for it. If you've had a prior denial, if there's a real dispute over your lineage, or if your eligibility is genuinely unclear under the law rather than just unfamiliar to you, a licensed immigration attorney is the right move. I'll tell you that directly if I see it in your case, even on a paid call. That's part of what you're paying for either way: someone willing to say "this isn't for me" instead of taking your money anyway.

Where to Start

Now you've seen the real math. The number a law firm quotes isn't the number the process actually requires. If you're not sure you're even eligible yet, take the quiz first, it takes two minutes and tells you whether any of this applies to you. If you already know you qualify and want the exact plan for your case, the Roadmap Call is the next step. And if you want the full breakdown of what third-party costs actually cover, I wrote about that here.

Take the 2-minute eligibility quiz