People are prone to forming false memories for fictitious events described in fake news stories. In this preregistered study, we hypothesized that the formation of false memories may be promoted when the fake news includes stereotypes that reflect positively on one's own nationality or negatively on another nationality. We exposed German and Irish participants (N = 1,184) to fabricated news stories that were consistent with positive or negative stereotypes about Germany and Ireland. The predicted three-way interaction was not observed. Exploratory follow-up analyses revealed the expected pattern of results for German participants but not for Irish participants, who were more likely to remember positive stories and stories about Ireland. Individual differences in patriotism did not significantly affect false memory rates; however, higher levels of cognitive ability and analytical reasoning decreased false memories and increased participants' ability to distinguish between true and false news stories. These results demonstrate that stereotypical information pertaining to national identity can influence the formation of false memories for fake news, but variations in cultural context may affect how misinformation is received and processed. We conclude by urging researchers to consider the sociopolitical and media landscape when predicting the consequences of fake news exposure. Public Significance Statement: Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in the quantity of misinformation or "fake news" available online. When people are exposed to fake news, they can come to believe in or even remember the events described in the fake stories, with potential consequences for democracy and international relations. Stereotypes entail vivid knowledge about how members of particular groups are expected to behave. We therefore expected that stereotypes might affect people's responses to fake news. In this study, we presented German and Irish participants with fake news stories that reflected either positive or negative stereotypes about Germany and Ireland. Many participants did form false memories or beliefs for the fake news stories, but a different pattern of results was observed for each nationality. This suggests that misinformation might be processed differently by different groups of people and that cultural context should be considered when investigating the impact of fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]