Most New German Citizens Retain Original Nationality

The majority of people who applied for German citizenship last year retained their original nationality, according to a survey by the Mediendienst Integration research group.

It found that the number of newly naturalized citizens with more than one nationality in 2025 ranged from 85% to 98% in cities that collected data.

Those who did not keep their original nationality when applying were either stateless or came from countries that prohibit dual citizenship, such as India, Ethiopia and Eritrea.

There were around 189,000 new naturalization applications in 2025 — a drop of about 10% compared to the previous year, the research group found.

In 2024, the German government changed the citizenship rules to allow people to hold dual citizenship — something that had previously only been possible for a few specific groups, including EU and Swiss citizens.

The reform also reduced the residency requirement for people applying for citizenship from eight years to five.

Where do most of the new dual citizens come from?

More than 300,000 people are estimated to have been granted German citizenship last year, according to preliminary data.

Syrians were the largest group to be naturalized, followed by citizens from Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia.

There are currently 3.6 million people in Germany with dual citizenship, according to Mediendienst Integration. Almost 70% of them are citizens of another European country.

Long waiting times for citizenship

The 2024 citizenship reform led to a surge in new applications, resulting in a significant backlog and long waiting times in many cities.

Berlin recorded the highest number of applications, with 36,100, followed by Munich with 17,800, Mediendienst Integration said.

According to German news agency dpa, more than 40,000 applications in Munich were still pending at the start of May.