The processing time for German naturalisation has started to increase due to the growing demand among foreigners to obtain the country’s passport now that the new citizenship law has entered into force.
As the city of Recklinghausen authorities have revealed, the processing time for naturalisation applications can currently go up to 18 months, Schengen.News reports.
Commenting on the long wait times, the spokesperson of Recklinghausen, Daniel Maiß, said that the main reason for this situation is the growing number of people submitting applications and the shortage of workers needed in the administrative offices.
At the same time, Maiß noted that the processing time can also go up to 18 months due to the common naturalisation procedures.
The reasons for this are the increasing number of cases, which also lead to greater workloads for the authorities involved and thus longer processing times, as well as the already lengthy naturalisation procedures and the training period for new employees.
The spokesperson further revealed that by August 14, Recklinghausen had received 797 new applications, an increase from 461 applications registered in the same period last year.
Most German Regions Are Receiving Large Numbers of Citizenship Applications
In addition to Recklinghausen, all the other parts of Germany are also seeing a high number of citizenship applications.
The number of citizenship applications in Hanover has nearly doubled this year. A spokesperson for the city revealed earlier this month that between 362 and 493 applications for naturalisation are accepted each month.
The same revealed that in the first six months of 2024, the city received more than 2,530 citizenship applications.
The region of Bavaria has also been seeing a growing demand for German citizenship. The capital of Bavaria, Munich, is one of the cities in the region that has recorded a significant number of applications. By the beginning of August, Munich had received more citizenship applications than it had in all of 2023.
New German Citizenship Law Permits Dual Citizenship
Germany’s new citizenship law, which entered into force on June 27, 2024, allows foreigners to obtain German citizenship more quickly and under more favourable conditions.
The new law includes ten key points, with the main one being the possibility of multiple nationality. The new rules no longer require foreigners to give up their previous citizenship to obtain a German passport.
In addition, in line with the new citizenship law, foreigners are now eligible for German citizenship after five years of legal residence instead of the previous eight years. Several other facilitations also apply.
