Acquisition of citizenship statistics

Data extracted 17 March 2026

Planned article update: March 2027

Highlights

In 2024, EU countries granted citizenship to close to 1.2 million people who had their usual residence on EU territory, an increase of 12% compared with 2023.

Most of the new citizenships were granted by Germany (288 700; 24.5% of the EU total), Spain (252 500; 21.4% of the EU total), Italy (217 400; 18.5%), France (103 700; 8.8%) and Sweden (63 000; 5.4%).

In 2024, Syrians, Moroccans and Albanians remained in the top 3 recipients of EU country citizenship.

This article presents recent statistics on the acquisition of citizenship in the European Union (EU). Citizenship is the legal bond between an individual and a state, acquired by birth, naturalisation, or other means according to national legislation. Naturalisation is the process by which a state grants its citizenship through a formal act on application of the individual concerned. Other ways of granting citizenship may include spouses of nationals, minors adopted by nationals and descendants of nationals born abroad returning to the country of origin of their ancestors. Naturalisation rate is the ratio of the number of persons who acquired the citizenship of a country during a calendar year over the total number of non-national residents in the same country at the beginning of the year.

Main trends in the acquisition of citizenship

In 2024, 1 177 232 people obtained citizenship of the EU country of their usual residence, an increase of 11.6% compared with 2023 (Figure 1). This was mainly the result of increases in absolute terms in Germany (88 900 more residents were granted German citizenship than in 2023), followed by Spain (12 300 more) and France (6 400 more) (Table 1). By contrast, the largest decreases in absolute terms compared with 2023 were observed in Romania (down by 8 500) and by Sweden (down by 4 800).

Figure 1

In relative terms, the largest increases occurred in Denmark (86.4%), Slovakia (59.2%), Germany (44.5%) and Malta (38.8%), while the largest decreases occurred in Romania (-67.9%), Estonia (-29.7%) and Hungary (-28.3%) (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Figure 3

Acquisition of citizenship in relation to the total population and naturalisation rate

In relation to the total population on 1 January 2024, the highest number of citizenships were granted by Luxembourg (8.8 per 1 000 persons), followed by Sweden (6.0), Spain (5.2), Belgium (5.1) and Ireland (4.5) (Figure 4).

Figure 4

An indicator commonly used to measure the effect of national policies on citizenship is the "naturalisation rate" or ratio of the total number of citizenships granted over the stock of non-national population in a country at the beginning of the year. It is important to note that changes in naturalisation rates can also be attributed to changes in the non-national population and in the way the non-national population is measured (see Data sources). In 2024, in the EU as a whole, 2.7 usual residents per 100 resident non-national citizens were granted citizenship. The country with the highest naturalisation rate was Sweden (7.5), followed by Italy (4.1) and Spain and the Netherlands (each 3.9), while Lithuania (0.1), Bulgaria and Estonia (each 0.3) had the lowest rates (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Acquisition of citizenship by group of previous citizenship

The majority (88.0%) of people granted an EU citizenship in 2024 were previously citizens of a non-EU country. Citizens of another EU country than the country of residence accounted for 10.6%. People without (or with unknown) citizenship represented 1.8% of the total (Table 2). In Hungary and Luxembourg, the majority of new citizenships (60.5% and 59.7% respectively) concerned citizens of another EU country (Table 2). In Luxembourg, Portuguese citizens accounted for the largest share (35.5%), followed by French (21.4%), Italian (8.8%) and Belgian citizens (8.3%). In Hungary, most new citizenships were for Romanians (71.4%) followed by Slovaks (20.0%) (Table 4).

For the EU as a whole, the largest groups in terms of previous citizenship in 2024 were Syrians (110 100 persons, 9.3% of all acquisitions of citizenship), Moroccans (97 100, 8.2%), Albanians (48 000, 4.1%), Turks (41 300, 3.5%) and Romanians (39 900, 3.4%) (Table 3).

The main EU countries granting citizenship to each of the top 5 nationalities were, respectively (Table 3):

Syrians: Germany (75.6%), the Netherlands (8.7%), and Sweden (6.9%)
Moroccans: Spain (44.2%), Italy (28.5%), and France (14.9%)
Albanians: Italy (65.9%) and Greece (22.3%)
Turks: Germany (54.6%), Netherlands (15.7%) and France (11.7%)
Romanians: Italy (37.0%) and Germany (21.7%).

Acquisition of citizenship by age and sex

The distribution by sex shows a slight predominance of women (50.9%, compared with 49.1% men), especially for the age groups above 30 years (55.4% women in the age group 60-64 years) (Table 5).

In 2024, acquisitions of citizenship by women outnumbered acquisitions by men in all but 10 EU countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden). The highest proportion of citizenship acquisitions by women was recorded in Croatia (63.6%), while the country with the highest share of acquisitions by men was Lithuania (58.9%).

In 2024, the median age of persons acquiring citizenship in the whole of the EU was 31.7 years. The EU country with the lowest median age was Greece: half of its new citizens were younger than 19.7 years. The highest median age was in Cyprus (43.9 years).

Age distribution varied from one EU country to another due to differences in citizenship legislation and age structure of the non-national population (see Data sources). However, the common feature uniting all was that most new citizenships were acquired by younger people, and that the numbers declined with age.

In 2024, 37.4% of persons granted citizenship of an EU country were younger than 25 years; another 43.0% were aged 25-44 years, while those aged 45 years and over accounted for 19.6% (Table 5 and Figure 6). Children below the age of 15 years represented 23.7% of persons granted citizenship of an EU country; the highest proportions of children were observed in France (34.3%), Greece (31.3%), Austria (29.4%) and Slovenia (28.4%). The countries with the lowest proportion of citizenship acquisitions by children were Lithuania (1.6%), Croatia (3.9%), Ireland (7.8%) and Luxembourg (8.8%). Across all EU countries, 7.3% of those who were granted citizenship were at least 55 years of age. Cyprus (30.7%), Lithuania (21.0%) and Latvia (20.3%) had the highest shares of citizenships granted to persons aged 55 years and over. The countries with the lowest shares of citizenships granted to persons aged 55 years and over were Austria (2.9%) and Slovenia (4.2%).

Figure 6

Source data for tables

Acquisition of citizenship statistics - tables

Data sources

Eurostat produces statistics on a range of issues related to acquisitions of citizenship, international migration flows and migrant population stocks. Data are collected on an annual basis and are supplied to Eurostat by the national statistical authorities of the EU Member States. Data for Germany (migr_acq and migr_acq1ctz) are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 starting from reference year 2018. The break in time series for Romania in 2017 relates to the introduction of improved administrative data sources that give more complete breakdowns for country of previous citizenship. Data in this article are rounded to the nearest hundred.

Definitions

This article concerns the acquisition of citizenship by the usually resident population of Member States. Usual residence means the place where a person normally spends the daily period of rest, regardless of temporary absences for purposes of recreation, holidays, visits to friends and relatives, business, medical treatment or religious pilgrimage.

Citizenship is the legal bond between an individual and a state, acquired by birth, naturalisation, or other means according to national legislation. Naturalisation is the process by which a state grants its citizenship through a formal act on application of the individual concerned. Other ways of granting citizenship may include spouses of nationals, minors adopted by nationals and descendants of nationals born abroad returning to the country of origin of their ancestors.

The naturalisation rate is the ratio of the number of persons who acquired the citizenship of a country during a calendar year over the stock of non-national residents in the same country at the beginning of the year. The naturalisation rate should be used with caution, however, as the numerator includes all means of acquisition and not just naturalisation of eligible residing non-nationals and the denominator includes all non-nationals and not just the relevant population, i.e. those non-nationals who are eligible for naturalisation.

There are 2 ways of recording age: Age reached: number of complete years lived at the end of the calendar year in question. Under this age concept, a person born in 1951 will be 52 on each day of the calendar year 2003, irrespective of his or her birthday. Age completed: number of completed years lived at most recent birthday.

Detailed information on the different modes of acquisition of citizenship in force in different countries can be found at the GLOBALCIT website. The category recognised non-citizen is particularly relevant in the Baltic States.

Context

Within the European Commission, the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs is responsible for European migration policy. In September 2020, the European Commission presented the New Pact on Migration and Asylum which was adopted by the European Parliament in April 2024 and by the Council in May 2024. This pact provides a comprehensive approach that delivers a common European response to migration. It allows the EU to manage migration in a fair and sustainable way, ensuring solidarity between countries while also providing certainty and clarity for people arriving in the EU and protecting their fundamental rights. The Pact on Migration and Asylum will ensure that countries share the effort responsibly, showing solidarity with the ones that protect our external borders and with those facing particular migratory pressure, while preventing irregular migration to the EU. The Pact also gives the EU and its countries the tools to react rapidly in situations of crisis, when countries are faced with large numbers of arrivals or when a third-country or non-State entity tries to instrumentalise migrants in order to destabilise our Union.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine On 4 March 2022, the Council unanimously adopted an implementing decision introducing temporary protection due to the mass inflow of persons fleeing Ukraine as a consequence of Russia's invasion. The activated Temporary Protection Directive provides special procedures to deal with mass inflows of displaced persons for the first time. Temporary protection is an exceptional measure to provide immediate and temporary protection to displaced persons from non-EU countries and those unable to return to their country of origin. It applies when there is a risk that the standard asylum system is struggling to cope with demand stemming from a mass inflow, risking a negative impact on the processing of claims.

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