Citizenship

Update May, 22 2023:

On May 19 2023, the Federal Government published the announced draft law for the amendment of the citizenship law. The following changes can be expected:

• • the periods of residence in Germany required for naturalization will be reduced from 8 to 5 years,
  • in the case of “special integration achievements” (special professional/school achievements or civic commitment and C1 language skills), a reduction to 3 years is possible,
  • in the case of naturalization, the previous citizenship can be retained,
  • naturalization is not possible when receiving social benefits (exception: full-time employed persons)
  • upon acceptance of a foreign citizenship, German citizenship is not lost (“Beibehaltungsgenehmigung” is no longer required).

The draft has now been forwarded to the federal states and NGOs for comments. It must then be discussed and passed by the Bundestag. Amendments are possible in the course of the legislative process. The regulations are expected to come into force on January 1, 2024.

If you do not yet meet the naturalization requirements under the current legal situation or would like to retain your previous citizenship, you should wait until the new regulations have come into force before submitting your application.

If you live in Berlin, please also note the following:

Starting in January 2024, a central citizenship department at the Berlin Immigration Office will take over the processing of naturalization procedures in Berlin. At the same time, the introduction of a digital naturalization application is intended.

The districts are instructed to give priority to conclude old procedures. Consultation appointments for new applications will therefore no longer be made in the districts. We can still prepare a naturalization application in writing and submit it in paper form to the district office. However, these applications are currently only digitized and will not be processed before the new central authority takes over in 2024. Whether older applications submitted to the district offices will be decided more quickly than applications submitted from 2024 cannot be answered at present.

Unfortunately, we have no way to speed up the processing of ongoing procedures. Due to the length of administrative court proceedings, an appeal for inaction to the Court does usually not accelerate the proceedings.

We will provide information on current developments here.

Until the new regulations come into force, the following requirements apply to naturalizations:

Naturalization

The right of naturalization is a complex question and depends on individual circumstances. Nevertheless the naturalization law contains some general requirements to obtain a right for naturalisation. Furthermore a certain time of legal residence is needed for naturalization.

General requirements are:

• legal residency in Germany since 8 years, (7 years with integration course, 6 years with special integration skills, such as B2 language proficieny).
• Sufficient means of substance (few exceptions possible)
• Sufficient knowledge of the German language (B1)
• No conviction for a major crime
• renunciation of the previous nationality (few exceptions possible)