Did you know that in 2022, almost one million people obtained citizenship of their EU country of residence? That’s a whopping 20% increase compared to the previous year, with a staggering 163,100 more people becoming citizens! Italy takes the top spot for granting the highest number of new citizenships, with an astonishing 213,700 (that’s 22% of the EU total). Spain and Germany also impressed, granting citizenship to 181,800 (18%) and 166,600 (17%) individuals respectively. It’s amazing to see so many people embracing their new home and becoming official citizens of their chosen country.
Italy, Spain, and Germany also recorded the largest increases in citizenships granted to non-national residents compared to 2021, with 92,200, 37,600, and 36,600 respectively. Conversely, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal experienced the largest decreases, with -15,900, -9,300, and -3,700 respectively.
Of those granted EU citizenship of the country where they resided in 2022, 87% were citizens of a non-EU country, while 12% were citizens of another EU country. The remainder comprised individuals with unknown previous citizenship (1%) or were stateless (0.7%).
Moroccan residents were the largest group of new EU citizens in 2022, with a total of 112,700 citizenships granted, followed by Syrian nationals (90,400) and Albanians (50,300).
The naturalization rate is a significant factor that shows the number of people who received citizenship in the country they reside in during a year. In 2022, Romania had the highest rate of naturalisation among the EU countries with 26.8 citizenships granted per 100 non-national residents. Sweden, the Netherlands, and Italy followed Romania with 10.6, 4.4, and 4.2 respectively. On the other hand, Latvia, Estonia, Austria, Bulgaria, Malta, and Czechia had the lowest naturalization rates per 100 non-national residents at 0.4, 0.4, 0.7, 0.7, 0.8, and 0.8 respectively.
These findings are a summary of the more detailed Statistics Explained article released in Eurostat today.
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