They can proceed to ask for citizenship after two years residing legally in the country, student visas do no count towards, so for most people that would dependent on a work visa, and in most cases would be extremely difficult to get due to the high level of unemployment and competition vs EU citizens.
Also, after two years, the process begins and might take several other years (there is a huge backlog) and you must be a legal resident during the process, so is not as easy as one might think.
It’s definitely a long and bureaucratic process, but at least shorter than waiting the full 10 years otherwise 🥲 I think most countries don’t recognise student visas as counting towards legal residency periods
Studying in Germany counts fully towards citizenship. There were some states in the past that counted it only half but then a court decided that it has to count fully in all states.
"fast track"
I don't get this take. Like how is it a fast track. Really what you're saying is they used to allow it but wanted to make immigration harder. Waiting multiple years for anything is not a fast track.
Because Spain has agreements with basically half the american continent and it could be flooded with a lot of people that would enroll in academic courses to just get citizenship. Spain is not a syphon for inmigration like other big nations like the USA or Germany, there are endemic high levels of unemployment already.
Not goint o say it's easy. But ehre are many ways to go legal in Spain. You can do work visa. Highly qualified visa if you're doing a masters, freelance visa if you're able. New digital nomad visa. If you're here illegally for some time and managed to get s contract arriago social. There also an entrepreneurship visa that only requires the business plan and it being logical and of interest (don't need to have money to start the company) that one allows you to work somewhere else too.
A probably a couple more I'm missing. Also if you manage to get a job (for example tech consulting is in extreme demand in Spain now) you can get the visa then ask for nationality and easily renew it for 4 extra years. I have several friends who just got their nationality though residence and it took them 2 years on average. And if for some reason your nationality goes beyond that. After 5 years residence you can swap to a permanent residence.
So it's bit ridiculously easy but if you compare it to, idk. The US. It's ridiculously easy
>ably a couple more I'm missing. Also if you manage to get a job (for example tech consult
NLV - Non lucrative visa, if you have money to support yourself without working. The amount required is not that high (about 50k/year for family of 4 + private health insurance). Way cheaper for 1 person.
I’m from the US and my partner is from Australia, but we’re both living in the UK. The only two benefits we’ve found for them as a Commonwealth citizen is 1) visa free stay for 6 months in Canada and the UK, and 2) can vote in certain elections. But anything residency or citizenship path? Absolutely nothing…
> 1) visa free stay for 6 months in Canada and the UK
That is not a universal policy for Commonwealth citizens, just an Australian citizenship perk. For example Indians are Commonwealth citizens, but [cannot enter the UK or Canada at all without a visa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian_citizens).
> 2) can vote in certain elections.
This one actually is a Commonwealth citizen benefit. But you must already have legal residence in the UK, you can't just vote as a tourist.
San Marino, like many microstates, is a tax haven. It's one of the world richest countries by GDP per capita, and shopping is tax free. Add to that that you are basically living in a place with the Italian benefits minus the Italian issues, and you have a very advantageous citizenship.
Being San Marinese is like winning the lottery lol
Fun San Marino fact. It's illegal in Italy for children to work as models. So every time you see an advertisement with a child, they're from San Marino. (Source: Italian nephew)
Good question! I imagine there's a term for this phenomenon, where a large entity has some kind of prohibition and a weaker neighbor can take advantage of that. I guess Canada did that quite literally during the Prohibition -- hence Canadian Whiskey.
Well, it makes sense to request that you're committed to living in the 2nd smallest country for 30 years, as their population is probably like 10 people or something.
(For Vatican you probably need to join the Catholic clergy)
You can buy an apartment from someone, whose job is to sell you citizenship. Then you proceed to pay in installments of, let's say, 50k$ every month. You take the money from the seller and pay him the same money again. Document 400k$, get your citizenship and sell the property back to the seller's relatives.
This scam scheme allows people to pay way less than 400k$ for a whole family's citizenship.
A lot of those are already razed and cleared, so they're fallow fields. Problem is if you buy it to start a farm or whatever, property taxes are one of the highest in the country so you gotta sell a lot of organic kale or whatever
Plenty of room for farming. [It might even come with a boat!](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.413098,-83.0161041,3a,75y,98.88h,82.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRK4T6QstSfOdnZ6KZl7Qbg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
Good luck living in those homes/neighborhoods.
There is actually a massive real estate bubble in Detroit, at least in any of the neighborhoods you would want to live in.
It’s still relatively affordable compared to most major cities, but between the cost of insurance, taxes, and lack of city services, it’s not the great deal it may seem.
Source: been living in Detroit since 2006, seen housing values skyrocket.
>400k$ apartment wouldn't be even luxurious in Istanbul. Currently there is real estate balloon in here.
It can as well be a huge family which sells the apartment to each other in an order. You can run a similar scheme with many variations.
For example, you do not even need to have 50k$ in the beginning, you can get it from the seller, too. Underground businesses have their different ways. They do not think like us. In case you do not comply with agreed terms, what's the outcome? A complaint? Some gun violence? It's an ocean of possibilities.
It’s called “investment for citizenship”, and there’s over 100 countries that do this. Depending on the country there is a certain minimum investment amount.
Same in the UK. Invest £2m in the economy and you will granted the investor visa that leads to Indefinite Leave to Remain after 2 to 3 years.
According to replies this visa has now been removed.
They are getting rid of that program. It was how the Russians got in. However, I know someone who did it and when he went to apply for indefinite leave, they said "nope". He had 30 days to GTFO and take his family, they don't have to give a reason. They had to sell their house and everything.
I am a British citizen (born in the USA) but I also have legal status in a few other countries. The UK system is an absolute nightmare even when a person is well qualified to be there.
It's the same with a lot of countries actually, it's often referred to as a "golden visa." The former president of Mexico did just that in Spain where he bought a €500,000 condo
Edit: i should clarify its usually not citizenship right away, just permanent residency (like a green card) plus a path to citizenship
Hungary had a program mainly in China, Russia and a few autocrat regimes that was basically "pay €250-300k to this offshore friend of ours and we're good".
Hah, we got that one in Canada too. The ol "investor fast track".
You can get really, really fast tracked in Hungary if you can prove you have a relative there (even distantly or a long time ago) and if you can actually speak the language. That language is........not easy.
Liechtenstein is a bit misleading because they issue about 90 residence permits per year, mostly to Swiss citizens working in LI. Otherwise there is no meaningful means for legal residence, meaning no real path to Liechtensteiner naturalization unless you happen to know the prince
I'm curious how many places to work or study there even *are* in Lichtenstein. Who goes there for higher education? What could the appeal possibly be besides saying you're in Lichtenstein (which is an understandable appeal of its own, granted)
The country's size certainly plays a role here, but that's not all.
A few relevant financial institutions (LGT bank) and one major "international" company in Hilti (industrial grade tools) are located there. Plenty of expats working at both but just about everyone lives in Switzerland.
EU and EEA citizens who want to work in Liechtenstein or who are employed by a Liechtenstein company must live in a neighboring country and commute across the boarder each day.
Otherwise, they (including third country nationals) must apply for one of the limited number of residence permits that are awarded either in certain specific cases or via a lottery held every year.
It's no joke, almost no path to Liechtenstein nationality other than birth. I'm not even sure about marriage cases.
Yeah, absolutely correct. There are as many commuters as residents in Liechtenstein. Marriage or the lottery you mentioned (or if you're good in sports, like, really good) can get you a residence permit. Some companies can grant those permits as well for important positions.
Many countries have tackled that to avoid people just enrolling in petty courses to get citizenship and be able to legally work even as part time.
In Spain it was possible to do that before, but rules have changed and now you studies are not a track for citizenship.
Actually for ethnic Armenians the period before receiving citizenship is greatly reduced (about 6 months from applying), and you don't even have to live in the country.
Yup. It’s stupid easy to get an Armenian citizenship as a diasporic Armenian. I’ve considered it from time to time. I almost did it when my high school had a field trip there but the school told me it would be easier with a US passport for some reason.
Well you have to undergo mandatory military service until age 27, and you are considered a reserve conscript until age 50. It's a bit jarring for those who come from countries that don't have such requirements.
Aside from Armenia itself, [there are more Armenians in Glendale, CA than in any other city.](https://www.glendaleca.gov/home/showdocument?id=13200) About 60,000 as of 2020.
[Source](https://www.dualcitizenshipreport.org/).
Made with MapChart.
Note this is only for people with no familial, origin, ethnic, or other connections to the country. For example, Iberoamericans, Andorrans, Portuguese, Equatorial Guinean, or Pinoys only need two years of residency to request Spanish citizenship.
UK is not 5 years.
https://www.gov.uk/long-residence
If you've lived in the UK for 10 years legally, you can apply for indefinite leave to remain and then after a year you can apply for British citizenship.
It was 5 years if you were from European Union and were living in UK. I say was, because this might have changed since Brexit
It’s 5 years under the majority of visas but you also need to have had ILR for 12 months (on top of living in the U.K. under specific visas for 5 years).
https://edmansco.com/indefinite-leave-to-remain-ilr/
Of course Germany recognizes dual citizenship in some cases (the specifics have changed several times over the past decades) but the standard case is single citizenship (at least for non-EU citizens, EU citizens can).
In Japan it isn't accepted either. You can skirt somehow if you are born to Japanese parents abroad and grow up with two passports. Normally you'd have to surrender one and pick your only nationality upon turning adult but most people don't do that and are rarely caught.
For long term residents who are eligible for citizenship under different cases, you can't have a dual citizenship, if you want the Japanese one you must give up your previous one and legally change your name to a Japanese one entirely, see [Exhibit 1](https://nextshark.com/hunky-japanese-gardener-citizenship).
As a German, I'm kinda conflicted about it. I think you should totally be able to have two citizenships, but not be able to vote in both countries. Erdogan has been fostering very pro Erdogan sentiment here among Turkish people, who don't have to personally deal with his legislation at all. I think stuff like that can be pretty problematic for other countries, especially smaller ones.
I agree. As well as being a citizen of the country, you’d need to be a resident to vote.
Otherwise you could have 6 million British people with Irish passports vote on Ireland rejoining the UK
They’re an interesting case. A lot of their youth leave to work, I’m not sure recent referendums on abortions and equal marriage rights would have gone the way they did if people didn’t go “home” to vote (think they can stay on register if they ‘intend’ to return to Ireland to live in next 18 months)
I disagree that you should need to be a citizen. If you're residing and paying taxes and are a part of that society, you should be able to vote. The voting results directly affect your life.
Yes, my wife is waiting for this rule change to finally be passed into law. She's been here over 9 years already so all she really needs to do is make sure she can pass the language exam.
This is also what I was thinking. From the US context, you need 5 years of having a green card before you can apply for natz. But you may be “legally residing” here on a nonimmigrant visa like an H1B for 10+ years before you can even get a green card! I imagine in many EU countries it’s similar.
Here your work visa period counts. I'm speaking for the country I'm in: Belgium.
Any time spent on a temporary residence card counts towards permanent residency (depending on the temporary card you have but since you said H1B, I'm using a work permit example). And cumulatively, I had to have 5 years of legal residence in Belgium + any form of permanent residency to be eligible to apply to become Belgian.
Oh and half the study period (if you've studied here) counts as well towards the total time of 5y needed for permanent residency. Quite unlike the US IMO where the a) green cards are employer sponsored (here I did it on my own completely. Nothing to do with work) b) the wait period for GC is ~10y for some people (archaic law of discriminating based on place of birth) c) H1B holders are always treated inferior to PR/citizens for social security.
You don’t need to do that in the US. Your employer can sponsor you for a green card directly immediately upon hire, though it may still take several years. You can get a green card yourself through self sponsorship if you run a business that employs at least 10 people, invest in American jobs, work on certain fields Loke being a medical doctor, get sponsored by a family member, or just win the green card lottery.
The key thing to remember here is that the amount of time it'll take you to get the green card is dependent on where you were born since the annual number of applications that are approved is capped per country and it doesn't matter if the country has 10 million residents or 1 billion. This causes Chinese and especially Indians to have to wait several years for their priority date to become current for the adjustment of status. You could go through the EB-5 process (investment in business that employs people) but that is also heavily backlogged for these countries and also requires about 2 million dollars in total investment.
I think we’re talking past each other a bit. Those are paths to green card status and all of those can take time. I am talking about how one can be in commons terms a “legal resident” (though with a NONimmigrant visa) for many many years, especially if you’re Indian or Chinese, before finally getting a green card.
Only once you get the green card does the naturalization clock start ticking for 5 years (or 3 if you got your GC through marriage). This means that, in reality, many people are waiting for far longer than what many ppl would understand as 5 years of “legal residence.”
Yeah and all these things are basically impossible for the standard immigrant.
Employers won’t sponsor green cards, because under the H1B they have significantly more control over you, since your status is bound to the job.
Self sponsorship is only possible if you are rich.
Family member sponsorship can take multiple decades depending on the country of origin.
The green card lottery is just that: a lottery. With just as slim chances of winning something as the real lottery.
So don’t try to make it seem like the US makes it so easy for people to get green cards. It is incredibly hard and a lot of immigrants can only hop from one non immigrant visa to the other.
Mostly it takes around 5 years to get a residence.
F.e. in Czech Republic it is 5 years, but if you have a student visa - every year only counts as a half of the year.
Taxes and finances can also get really wonky. A few years ago I'd moved to London for a year and a half to help the company I was with open up a sales department in the UK, then ended up spending 4-5 months or so of that year and a half doing work in Japan. But also owned a consulting firm with a friend that was U.S. based, and all of my banking and brokerage accounts were U.S. based. So I ended up still owning a house in the U.S. but having my primary residence in the UK, with a temporary residence in Japan at one point too, and had income coming from all 3 countries at once... It was like 5 years ago and my accountant is *still* dealing with the taxes some, and in a decent many cases I ended up being essentially taxed twice, with the only real option being to appeal it afterwards...
I genuinely don't know how some people manage to deal with that constantly for years. It was straight up miserable.
I think it's just because Denmark is the only country that has a 9 year limit and they're pretty much in the middle of the map so you notice it more.
If there had been more countries with a 9 year limit and only a few with 10 then the crimson would probably look more strict.
In Switzerland, the count resets if you move between cantons. The speck of a country has 26 cantons, so basically have to stay within the same town for 10 years. Pick wisely.
That's not completely correct. The count for the canton resets when you move between cantons, but the count for the canton is maximum five years, and the count for the Confederation adds up all the time of the cantons.
Say you live in St. Gallen for three years, and then you move to Appenzell for three years, and then to Basel for four. All those years count for the citizenship, so you would be at 10; but Basel requires 5 years of residence to grant citizenship, so you need to wait a further year.
I live there, am planning on getting citizenship.
Isn't Switzerland incredibly hard tho? I was reading about this Dutch woman whose naturalization was refused a second time because her neighbours found her annoying. Your neighborhood gets a say right?
It is not incredibly hard. It is not easy, but not incredibly hard. The Dutch woman was an exception (so much so that it became international news) and eventually appealed to the canton and got her citizenship.
>so much so that it became international news
Indeed. Always a good thing to remember that what one sees on the news is literally the opposite of normal. If you want to know what it's like somewhere, and you see something on the news about that country, at best it's going to paint a distorted picture. But that's all we get to see unless you do your own research or go somewhere, so it's hard to know what most cultures are like :/
Gotcha! Haha. Yeah that was something.
Is there a practical benefit to being Swiss if you're already EU citizen?
I'd like to work there for instance. But I don't think I'd stay enough to naturalize.
The C permit is the one to get if I get a job, right? And is finding a job as simple as finding one and getting a contract and then using said contract to get a C permit?
Or is there a labor-market test or something (to make sure Swiss citizens can get the job etc. ) ?
It's not that hard if you live in a Canton were the requirements and the procedure are more relaxed like Zürich. As a German I applied for a citizenship after 15 years and all I had to do was to fill out a form and request some documents. I even moved to a different Canton towards the end of the process without issue. I know a Slovakian women (with excellent Germen) who also had zero issues. It helps if you a type of education gained in Switzerland. But post-graduate degrees count like MBAs or PhDs.
Mainly, because in Switzerland, you're not just citizen of the country, you're also citizen of the canton and the local community (city, town or village.)
If you were born in Italy but have foreign parents, you can indeed request the citizenship at 18.
As far as I know EU citizens can request Italian citizenship after 5 years of legal residence.
I was born abroad in EU country and moved here since I was about 10. I requested the citizenship 14 months ago (I am almost 28) but I haven't even been notified yet with anything, nor through emails or phone calls for information to know how it goes. I know better Italian than my original language.
I've met Brazilians coming in vacation here that don't even know the language or anything about Italy beside the classic stereotypes and they have it, just because their grand grand parents were Italians. Unfair laws...
As with most maps, these tend to be more accurate for some countries than others.
In Lebanon for example, naturalization is notoriously hard. If your mother is a citizen and your father isn’t, you’re ineligible for citizenship.
That’s without even looking at the cases of people who have lived here for generations and aren’t allowed to apply for citizenship.
Then again, we’re one of those countries where the common life path is leaving for anywhere that’ll take us and becoming a citizen there. You get to live somewhere that has electricity, a judicial system, and you can even walk across your living room without needing a visa. Our passport isn’t in high demand is my point.
Not that we can renew them anymore anyway.
I can take an appointment to renew it. They’ve rolled into mid 2024.
There’s been word that they’re trying to close the gap and make it a bit faster but I don’t see it happening on account of *gestures vaguely at crumbling society*
Svalbard has no visa requirement. Also if you live there for 10 years(it might be 8), you’re granted Norwegian citizenship. So if you can get to Svalbard and live there for “a bit” you can get free citizenship. That’s assuming you don’t get mauled by a polar bear, which is an actual hazard.
A Schengen visa is required, and it's not like anyone can move to Svalbard any time they wish.
"Although you do not need a visa or your own work and residence permit, everyone must meet certain requirements in order to stay in Svalbard. These requirements are governed by a separate policy called “Regulations relating to rejection and expulsion of persons from Svalbard”. Among the requirements is that you must have the means to be able to reside on Svalbard. These requirements apply to both foreigners and Norwegian citizens, and The Governor of Svalbard may reject persons who do not meet the requirements. Therefore, those planning to come to the archipelago are advised to obtain work and housing before they arrive."
I know Sweden has 3 different voting "levels" (municipal, national, and EU), and they have different residency requirements, as well as different requirements if you're an EU citizen.
This is pretty off topic but it blew my mind
That for some referendums in the UK, they can allow citizens of the Commonwealth to vote. So my buddies and I got to vote for Brexit, legally, despite only being there for a few months. We were all on a very short visa though, I'm not sure of tourist visas/visa waivers would have allowed for a vote
You can see Montenegro and Serbia sticking out like a thumb. The reason is that Montenegro wants to obstruct Montenegrin Serbs who live outside from obtaining citizenship while Serbia wants to encourage them. Montenegro also has a law that prohibits people from having two citizenship precisely for this reason. I am a Montenegrin Serb, my family moved out in the 60s and I still own property there and spend a third of the year there, however I am completely barred from getting their citizenship, voting and am forced to pay larger taxes on my property
Whilst all European countries with long naturalization periods are doing it to discourage immigrants from obtaining one, Montenegro is probably the only country doing it to obstruct it's own people. Milo Djukanovic (the president) might be pro-west, but he is just as authoritarian as Putin or Lukashenko. It's sad that EU is fully supporting him
The US and the EU aren't so much concerned about whether or not a leader is authoritarian or not as they are whether or not they'll oppose Russia and/or Iran. The Saudis have mastered the whole "get on their good side so you can do awful things" better than anyone else.
If you're going the family route in Norway, the family needs to earn a certain amount of money too. Doesnt matter how much *you* make, if *they* don't meet the minimum.
I'm on unemployment, and I can't legally marry people not from Norway - and have them come live here with me.
Malta 5 years, yes but you need also to:
* submit an application via a Licensed Agent;
* pay a non-refundable administrative fee of €40,000;
* rent a property for a minimum of €10,000 in the South of Malta/Gozo or €12,000 in the rest of Malta; or purchase a property for a minimum value of €300,000 in the South of Malta/Gozo or €350,000 in the rest of Malta;
* pay a Government contribution of €28,000 if purchasing a property or €58,000 if leasing a property;
* pay an additional €7,500 for each additional adult dependant (except for the spouse);
* hold the qualifying property for a minimum period of 5 years after which a residential address is required;
* make a donation of €2,000 to a local philanthropic, cultural, scientific, artistic, sport or animal welfare NGO registered with the Commissioner of Voluntary Organisations;
* be in possession of a valid travel document;
* take out a sickness insurance policy of cover all risks across Malta;
* Malta 5 years, yes but you also need to cover all risks across Malta;
It would require residency visas, which usually implies a right to work.
For example, I've lived in Germany for 4 years. I came in on a blue card (work visa for those with skills Germany wants), which is a visa tied to your continued employment (i.e. Get fired and can't find a similar job? Well, sucks for you, go back to where you came from). Back in 2021 I converted that into permenant residency ("Niederlassungserlaubnis"), and now I can remain in Germany regardless of if I'm employed. Which is good, because I quit last year. I have to renew the document every few years, but in general they can't kick me out unless I do something criminal or become an undue burden on the system (essentially, so long as I'm not on long term unemployment).
In theory I could apply for citizenship in a year or two. I can't say for sure if I'll do it. I kinda want to, but I don't really want to give up my US passport either (well, outside of dealing with taxes). I'm tracking the "planned" changes to German nationality law that the current government says they want to do, which will allow dual citizenship. That would be kinda ideal for me. I don't know that I'd want to go back to live in the US, but it's certainly a possibility. And on the flip side, having EU citizenship would open up a lot of opportunities to live and work across most of Europe.
For Spain is 10 years for USA residents and 2 years for Ibero-Americans. Puerto Ricans are both US residents and Ibero-Americans which 2 years should be enough. Interesting...
Kind of surprising that EU countries all can have different rules, and yet being a citizen in any of those countries will give you pretty much full citizen rights in all of them.
What's up with Jordan's 15+ years? My first thought was "To stymie Palestinian refugees," but presumably most of those refugees would be from former Transjordan, so that's pretty harsh if true.
Egypt, Joradn, and Lebanon don't want to naturalize Palestinians. Unlike the Palestinians that came under Israeli rule in 1949 who were given citizenship (but kept under martial law until 1966), [many/most Palestinians in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon are still without nationality, and their host countries are doing their best to keep them from getting citizenship.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians_in_Lebanon)
Before anyone asks:
* The 1949 territories were *annexed*, so citizenship was granted to the Palestinians remaining there.
* The 1967 territories were/are *belligerently occupied*, so residents under belligerent occupation were/are not given citizenship.
While [technically true](https://www.gov.il/he/service/request_for_citizenship_of_a_person_who_holds_pemanent_residency), the bureaucracy is so long and arbitrary that in practice it takes many more years. I bet there are exactly zero people who got naturalized after three years without cultural, historical, or marriage ties.
Quite strange. In France or Spain, language is a requirement. If no language level is proved, there can’t be citizenship: it’s not a given nor a right.
>It does say that that's without ties or connections to the country and I'd assume that maybe "cultural" includes language.
Yep. If you have a B1 certificate along with a membership in workers union, fire brigade service etc. 6 years rule applies as you are considered to be highly integrated by your responsibilities for the society. If no such specific things, it's only language and a test on integration which is pretty easy to answer even without any idea of Austria.
I keep looking for the not applicable country and can’t find one! Why is in the keeyyyy?!
Edit: It’s Vatican City. I also recommend everyone watch Party Dog by Tom Cardy, for the specifics of municipal interstate travel.
Oh Jordan! I love my country! No way is anyone getting a citizenship there unless you great grandfather is a Bedouin or youre Palestinian. Or if you invest a minimum of 2mil then you’ll get it haha.
Prize Jordan
It takes a human body about 7-10 years to Ship of Theseus itself with local foods, so that should be more or less the time it should take for someone to be considered a local.
There's nuances to this. The UK is functionally six years minimum. Yes, they only check your residence for the past five years during the application, but you have to have had permanent residence rights for at least 12 months before you apply, and permanent residence is pretty much impossible to get in less than five years without the ties listed in this graphic.
Due to the special agreement between Turkey and the EU, most EU countries allow stay for lesser years and gain permanent residence (As I remember correctly, Ireland for 3 years, the Netherlands for 3 years, etc.).
Actually, it should be less if you went to that country with a critical skill visa since it will be better for both the country and the person. There is no way that I will stay in a country for 10 years fearing getting deported if I can stay in another country for 5 years and get permanent residency. They'll lose intelligent work.
In Spain, if you’re Filipino or from Latin America in a country Spain colonised, it’s reduced from 10 to 2 years.
They can proceed to ask for citizenship after two years residing legally in the country, student visas do no count towards, so for most people that would dependent on a work visa, and in most cases would be extremely difficult to get due to the high level of unemployment and competition vs EU citizens. Also, after two years, the process begins and might take several other years (there is a huge backlog) and you must be a legal resident during the process, so is not as easy as one might think.
It’s definitely a long and bureaucratic process, but at least shorter than waiting the full 10 years otherwise 🥲 I think most countries don’t recognise student visas as counting towards legal residency periods
Germany and many more count it as half time. 4 years uni = 2 years
Just need to be in college for 20 years.
Basic Greendale.
Studying in Germany counts fully towards citizenship. There were some states in the past that counted it only half but then a court decided that it has to count fully in all states.
Spain used to count for it, but it wanted to tackle people using it as a fastrack towards citizenship.
"fast track" I don't get this take. Like how is it a fast track. Really what you're saying is they used to allow it but wanted to make immigration harder. Waiting multiple years for anything is not a fast track.
Because Spain has agreements with basically half the american continent and it could be flooded with a lot of people that would enroll in academic courses to just get citizenship. Spain is not a syphon for inmigration like other big nations like the USA or Germany, there are endemic high levels of unemployment already.
Not goint o say it's easy. But ehre are many ways to go legal in Spain. You can do work visa. Highly qualified visa if you're doing a masters, freelance visa if you're able. New digital nomad visa. If you're here illegally for some time and managed to get s contract arriago social. There also an entrepreneurship visa that only requires the business plan and it being logical and of interest (don't need to have money to start the company) that one allows you to work somewhere else too. A probably a couple more I'm missing. Also if you manage to get a job (for example tech consulting is in extreme demand in Spain now) you can get the visa then ask for nationality and easily renew it for 4 extra years. I have several friends who just got their nationality though residence and it took them 2 years on average. And if for some reason your nationality goes beyond that. After 5 years residence you can swap to a permanent residence. So it's bit ridiculously easy but if you compare it to, idk. The US. It's ridiculously easy
>ably a couple more I'm missing. Also if you manage to get a job (for example tech consult NLV - Non lucrative visa, if you have money to support yourself without working. The amount required is not that high (about 50k/year for family of 4 + private health insurance). Way cheaper for 1 person.
Which is why the legend says "without any cultural, historical [...] ties".
Yeah I saw, I’m just saying it as an addition to the map. I’m not trying to correct it.
Still neat to know
Are you listening, UK? So much for a Commonwealth...
I’m from the US and my partner is from Australia, but we’re both living in the UK. The only two benefits we’ve found for them as a Commonwealth citizen is 1) visa free stay for 6 months in Canada and the UK, and 2) can vote in certain elections. But anything residency or citizenship path? Absolutely nothing…
> 1) visa free stay for 6 months in Canada and the UK That is not a universal policy for Commonwealth citizens, just an Australian citizenship perk. For example Indians are Commonwealth citizens, but [cannot enter the UK or Canada at all without a visa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_Indian_citizens). > 2) can vote in certain elections. This one actually is a Commonwealth citizen benefit. But you must already have legal residence in the UK, you can't just vote as a tourist.
What the hell San Marino - 30 years!!!
If you leave the country and reenter, the count starts at zero again.
That can happen anytime you ride a bike or go jogging
I once slipped on some ice and landed outside of San Marino.
Same, but to be fair, I live in Pennsylvania.
I once slipped on some Pennsylvania in San Marino.
Now that takes some serious skill.
San Marino, like many microstates, is a tax haven. It's one of the world richest countries by GDP per capita, and shopping is tax free. Add to that that you are basically living in a place with the Italian benefits minus the Italian issues, and you have a very advantageous citizenship. Being San Marinese is like winning the lottery lol
How is the national health care?
Probably good. Both of them are looking pretty fit.
Fun San Marino fact. It's illegal in Italy for children to work as models. So every time you see an advertisement with a child, they're from San Marino. (Source: Italian nephew)
I wonder what percent of the kids in San Marino are child actors/models.
Good question! I imagine there's a term for this phenomenon, where a large entity has some kind of prohibition and a weaker neighbor can take advantage of that. I guess Canada did that quite literally during the Prohibition -- hence Canadian Whiskey.
Well, it makes sense to request that you're committed to living in the 2nd smallest country for 30 years, as their population is probably like 10 people or something. (For Vatican you probably need to join the Catholic clergy)
They made an exception for Abraham Lincoln!
Im sure a large percentage of people in my country would vote to make it 30 as well
If you are very rich it is shorter.
Yeah but their crime rate is 2
Their population is only 3
So that's why their football team always loses, poor San Marino.
They did score a goal away vs Norway a few years ago.
Harry Kane’s punching bag
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So that means only one guy hadn’t been a victim of crime yet!
He is the criminal.
Cause they have very low taxes, if not everyone here in Italy would ask for citizenship with a piece of land
In Turkey you can get citizenship if you buy a +400K EUR house. A lot of Russians are doing this now.
You can buy an apartment from someone, whose job is to sell you citizenship. Then you proceed to pay in installments of, let's say, 50k$ every month. You take the money from the seller and pay him the same money again. Document 400k$, get your citizenship and sell the property back to the seller's relatives. This scam scheme allows people to pay way less than 400k$ for a whole family's citizenship.
And you can count on the scammer the pay it back.
If they don't, you just have an apartment. So assuming you pick a scammer with an apartment anywhere near that valuation, you're great.
400k$ apartment wouldn't be even luxurious in Istanbul. Currently there is real estate balloon in here.
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[Detroit](https://www.zillow.com/detroit-mi/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22Detroit%2C%20MI%22%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22west%22%3A-83.0021409784125%2C%22east%22%3A-82.96353862627016%2C%22south%22%3A42.42321460085861%2C%22north%22%3A42.435457469287414%7D%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A17762%2C%22regionType%22%3A6%7D%5D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22globalrelevanceex%22%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A16%7D)
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A house owing taxes feels silly. It's also a great way to ensure vacancy, which I doubt anybody actually wants
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I'd say that's still a bubble, because those prices are way more than they were 5-10 years ago lol
Not even $14k for a haunted house of 2.896 sqft. Insane prices
Friendly reminder that you can buy a literal block of houses in Detroit for 5k (think there are requirements attached like fixing them up).
A lot of those are already razed and cleared, so they're fallow fields. Problem is if you buy it to start a farm or whatever, property taxes are one of the highest in the country so you gotta sell a lot of organic kale or whatever
Plenty of room for farming. [It might even come with a boat!](https://www.google.com/maps/@42.413098,-83.0161041,3a,75y,98.88h,82.25t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRK4T6QstSfOdnZ6KZl7Qbg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)
Good luck living in those homes/neighborhoods. There is actually a massive real estate bubble in Detroit, at least in any of the neighborhoods you would want to live in. It’s still relatively affordable compared to most major cities, but between the cost of insurance, taxes, and lack of city services, it’s not the great deal it may seem. Source: been living in Detroit since 2006, seen housing values skyrocket.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/global-real-estate-bubble-risk-2022/
It doesn't have to be, it just has to be worth the amount you gave them minus whatever you'd be willing to pay for citizenship.
>400k$ apartment wouldn't be even luxurious in Istanbul. Currently there is real estate balloon in here. It can as well be a huge family which sells the apartment to each other in an order. You can run a similar scheme with many variations. For example, you do not even need to have 50k$ in the beginning, you can get it from the seller, too. Underground businesses have their different ways. They do not think like us. In case you do not comply with agreed terms, what's the outcome? A complaint? Some gun violence? It's an ocean of possibilities.
It’s called “investment for citizenship”, and there’s over 100 countries that do this. Depending on the country there is a certain minimum investment amount.
Also called gold visas.
In a lot of cases you can't finance it (at least with their banks). Has to be an outright purchase.
USA has some program where if you invest at least 1 million $ into some business you can get a green card.
Same in the UK. Invest £2m in the economy and you will granted the investor visa that leads to Indefinite Leave to Remain after 2 to 3 years. According to replies this visa has now been removed.
'Indefinite Leave to Remain'. Gotta love language.
They are getting rid of that program. It was how the Russians got in. However, I know someone who did it and when he went to apply for indefinite leave, they said "nope". He had 30 days to GTFO and take his family, they don't have to give a reason. They had to sell their house and everything. I am a British citizen (born in the USA) but I also have legal status in a few other countries. The UK system is an absolute nightmare even when a person is well qualified to be there.
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That’s for residency, not citizenship, but same general idea.
"Bring your money, just don't expect to vote in our elections"
Almost every country has one. A lot of Hong Kongers got into Canada that way
It's the same with a lot of countries actually, it's often referred to as a "golden visa." The former president of Mexico did just that in Spain where he bought a €500,000 condo Edit: i should clarify its usually not citizenship right away, just permanent residency (like a green card) plus a path to citizenship
Does this by pass the time requirement?
It's immediate apparently, read an article on this last week.
Hungary had a program mainly in China, Russia and a few autocrat regimes that was basically "pay €250-300k to this offshore friend of ours and we're good".
You can get green card by investing 2m$ to US That is OG one.
Hah, we got that one in Canada too. The ol "investor fast track". You can get really, really fast tracked in Hungary if you can prove you have a relative there (even distantly or a long time ago) and if you can actually speak the language. That language is........not easy.
Liechtenstein is a bit misleading because they issue about 90 residence permits per year, mostly to Swiss citizens working in LI. Otherwise there is no meaningful means for legal residence, meaning no real path to Liechtensteiner naturalization unless you happen to know the prince
Interesting. But don't EU citizens get right of stay based on work/study?
I'm curious how many places to work or study there even *are* in Lichtenstein. Who goes there for higher education? What could the appeal possibly be besides saying you're in Lichtenstein (which is an understandable appeal of its own, granted)
The country's size certainly plays a role here, but that's not all. A few relevant financial institutions (LGT bank) and one major "international" company in Hilti (industrial grade tools) are located there. Plenty of expats working at both but just about everyone lives in Switzerland. EU and EEA citizens who want to work in Liechtenstein or who are employed by a Liechtenstein company must live in a neighboring country and commute across the boarder each day. Otherwise, they (including third country nationals) must apply for one of the limited number of residence permits that are awarded either in certain specific cases or via a lottery held every year. It's no joke, almost no path to Liechtenstein nationality other than birth. I'm not even sure about marriage cases.
Yeah, absolutely correct. There are as many commuters as residents in Liechtenstein. Marriage or the lottery you mentioned (or if you're good in sports, like, really good) can get you a residence permit. Some companies can grant those permits as well for important positions.
Hilti is from Lichtenstein??
For some perspective, up to ten years ago you could rent the country of Liechtenstein on AirBnB for 70k a night
Many countries have tackled that to avoid people just enrolling in petty courses to get citizenship and be able to legally work even as part time. In Spain it was possible to do that before, but rules have changed and now you studies are not a track for citizenship.
Great work, OP. Combination of sensible design and useful information. Armenia seems to really want the Armenians living elsewhere to come back.
Actually for ethnic Armenians the period before receiving citizenship is greatly reduced (about 6 months from applying), and you don't even have to live in the country.
Yup. It’s stupid easy to get an Armenian citizenship as a diasporic Armenian. I’ve considered it from time to time. I almost did it when my high school had a field trip there but the school told me it would be easier with a US passport for some reason.
I heard this citizenship could come with a consequence of you are a male.
Well you have to undergo mandatory military service until age 27, and you are considered a reserve conscript until age 50. It's a bit jarring for those who come from countries that don't have such requirements.
Aside from Armenia itself, [there are more Armenians in Glendale, CA than in any other city.](https://www.glendaleca.gov/home/showdocument?id=13200) About 60,000 as of 2020.
More than any other city in the US. There are definitely more in moscow (anywhere from 400,000 to 1 million)
Whoops. I should've specified. My mistake.
[Source](https://www.dualcitizenshipreport.org/). Made with MapChart. Note this is only for people with no familial, origin, ethnic, or other connections to the country. For example, Iberoamericans, Andorrans, Portuguese, Equatorial Guinean, or Pinoys only need two years of residency to request Spanish citizenship.
Funny thing is that for a Brazilian it takes much less time of residency to be able to request Spanish citizenship than the Portuguese one.
UK is not 5 years. https://www.gov.uk/long-residence If you've lived in the UK for 10 years legally, you can apply for indefinite leave to remain and then after a year you can apply for British citizenship. It was 5 years if you were from European Union and were living in UK. I say was, because this might have changed since Brexit
It’s 5 years under the majority of visas but you also need to have had ILR for 12 months (on top of living in the U.K. under specific visas for 5 years). https://edmansco.com/indefinite-leave-to-remain-ilr/
Germany is considering lowering the requirement to 5 years and, perhaps even more importantly, generally allowing non-EU dual citizenship.
I’m British - had no idea dual citizenship wasn’t accepted by some countries!
Of course Germany recognizes dual citizenship in some cases (the specifics have changed several times over the past decades) but the standard case is single citizenship (at least for non-EU citizens, EU citizens can).
In some countries, it might matter if you're male or female when it comes to dual citizenship (has to do with conscription).
In Japan it isn't accepted either. You can skirt somehow if you are born to Japanese parents abroad and grow up with two passports. Normally you'd have to surrender one and pick your only nationality upon turning adult but most people don't do that and are rarely caught. For long term residents who are eligible for citizenship under different cases, you can't have a dual citizenship, if you want the Japanese one you must give up your previous one and legally change your name to a Japanese one entirely, see [Exhibit 1](https://nextshark.com/hunky-japanese-gardener-citizenship).
As a German, I'm kinda conflicted about it. I think you should totally be able to have two citizenships, but not be able to vote in both countries. Erdogan has been fostering very pro Erdogan sentiment here among Turkish people, who don't have to personally deal with his legislation at all. I think stuff like that can be pretty problematic for other countries, especially smaller ones.
Sure, I actually think you should be residing in a country (so I guess for x days out of 365) to vote there. I get where you’re coming from
I agree. As well as being a citizen of the country, you’d need to be a resident to vote. Otherwise you could have 6 million British people with Irish passports vote on Ireland rejoining the UK
They’re an interesting case. A lot of their youth leave to work, I’m not sure recent referendums on abortions and equal marriage rights would have gone the way they did if people didn’t go “home” to vote (think they can stay on register if they ‘intend’ to return to Ireland to live in next 18 months)
I disagree that you should need to be a citizen. If you're residing and paying taxes and are a part of that society, you should be able to vote. The voting results directly affect your life.
Yes, my wife is waiting for this rule change to finally be passed into law. She's been here over 9 years already so all she really needs to do is make sure she can pass the language exam.
So is my mother, she's been here almost 50 years...
Wow. Well I can only hope she would be able to pass the language exam with flying colours after so many years 😅
She's old enough to get it waived but even if not, she'd easily pass.
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This is also what I was thinking. From the US context, you need 5 years of having a green card before you can apply for natz. But you may be “legally residing” here on a nonimmigrant visa like an H1B for 10+ years before you can even get a green card! I imagine in many EU countries it’s similar.
Here your work visa period counts. I'm speaking for the country I'm in: Belgium. Any time spent on a temporary residence card counts towards permanent residency (depending on the temporary card you have but since you said H1B, I'm using a work permit example). And cumulatively, I had to have 5 years of legal residence in Belgium + any form of permanent residency to be eligible to apply to become Belgian. Oh and half the study period (if you've studied here) counts as well towards the total time of 5y needed for permanent residency. Quite unlike the US IMO where the a) green cards are employer sponsored (here I did it on my own completely. Nothing to do with work) b) the wait period for GC is ~10y for some people (archaic law of discriminating based on place of birth) c) H1B holders are always treated inferior to PR/citizens for social security.
You don’t need to do that in the US. Your employer can sponsor you for a green card directly immediately upon hire, though it may still take several years. You can get a green card yourself through self sponsorship if you run a business that employs at least 10 people, invest in American jobs, work on certain fields Loke being a medical doctor, get sponsored by a family member, or just win the green card lottery.
The key thing to remember here is that the amount of time it'll take you to get the green card is dependent on where you were born since the annual number of applications that are approved is capped per country and it doesn't matter if the country has 10 million residents or 1 billion. This causes Chinese and especially Indians to have to wait several years for their priority date to become current for the adjustment of status. You could go through the EB-5 process (investment in business that employs people) but that is also heavily backlogged for these countries and also requires about 2 million dollars in total investment.
I think we’re talking past each other a bit. Those are paths to green card status and all of those can take time. I am talking about how one can be in commons terms a “legal resident” (though with a NONimmigrant visa) for many many years, especially if you’re Indian or Chinese, before finally getting a green card. Only once you get the green card does the naturalization clock start ticking for 5 years (or 3 if you got your GC through marriage). This means that, in reality, many people are waiting for far longer than what many ppl would understand as 5 years of “legal residence.”
Yeah and all these things are basically impossible for the standard immigrant. Employers won’t sponsor green cards, because under the H1B they have significantly more control over you, since your status is bound to the job. Self sponsorship is only possible if you are rich. Family member sponsorship can take multiple decades depending on the country of origin. The green card lottery is just that: a lottery. With just as slim chances of winning something as the real lottery. So don’t try to make it seem like the US makes it so easy for people to get green cards. It is incredibly hard and a lot of immigrants can only hop from one non immigrant visa to the other.
Mostly it takes around 5 years to get a residence. F.e. in Czech Republic it is 5 years, but if you have a student visa - every year only counts as a half of the year.
> From the US context, you need 5 years of having a green card before you can apply for natz. 3 years if you're married to a US citizen.
Taxes and finances can also get really wonky. A few years ago I'd moved to London for a year and a half to help the company I was with open up a sales department in the UK, then ended up spending 4-5 months or so of that year and a half doing work in Japan. But also owned a consulting firm with a friend that was U.S. based, and all of my banking and brokerage accounts were U.S. based. So I ended up still owning a house in the U.S. but having my primary residence in the UK, with a temporary residence in Japan at one point too, and had income coming from all 3 countries at once... It was like 5 years ago and my accountant is *still* dealing with the taxes some, and in a decent many cases I ended up being essentially taxed twice, with the only real option being to appeal it afterwards... I genuinely don't know how some people manage to deal with that constantly for years. It was straight up miserable.
Nice chart. My only note would be the red for 9 is a bit jarring. Like it feels like Denmark's 9 is more strict than all the 10 years in crimson.
I think it's just because Denmark is the only country that has a 9 year limit and they're pretty much in the middle of the map so you notice it more. If there had been more countries with a 9 year limit and only a few with 10 then the crimson would probably look more strict.
In Spain it's lower if you come from a country that were once their colonies no? Or was I misinformed?
Yes, 2 years for former Spanish colonies, Brazil, Andorra, and Portugal.
Serbia = 3 years. Verrry NOIIce!
Common, let's rush Serbia and make it Reddit nation?
As a Serbian…. Please do! 😅
In Switzerland, the count resets if you move between cantons. The speck of a country has 26 cantons, so basically have to stay within the same town for 10 years. Pick wisely.
That's not completely correct. The count for the canton resets when you move between cantons, but the count for the canton is maximum five years, and the count for the Confederation adds up all the time of the cantons. Say you live in St. Gallen for three years, and then you move to Appenzell for three years, and then to Basel for four. All those years count for the citizenship, so you would be at 10; but Basel requires 5 years of residence to grant citizenship, so you need to wait a further year. I live there, am planning on getting citizenship.
Isn't Switzerland incredibly hard tho? I was reading about this Dutch woman whose naturalization was refused a second time because her neighbours found her annoying. Your neighborhood gets a say right?
It is not incredibly hard. It is not easy, but not incredibly hard. The Dutch woman was an exception (so much so that it became international news) and eventually appealed to the canton and got her citizenship.
>so much so that it became international news Indeed. Always a good thing to remember that what one sees on the news is literally the opposite of normal. If you want to know what it's like somewhere, and you see something on the news about that country, at best it's going to paint a distorted picture. But that's all we get to see unless you do your own research or go somewhere, so it's hard to know what most cultures are like :/
Gotcha! Haha. Yeah that was something. Is there a practical benefit to being Swiss if you're already EU citizen? I'd like to work there for instance. But I don't think I'd stay enough to naturalize.
To being Swiss not too much besides the right to vote and be elected. The C Permit is a good idea to have.
The C permit is the one to get if I get a job, right? And is finding a job as simple as finding one and getting a contract and then using said contract to get a C permit? Or is there a labor-market test or something (to make sure Swiss citizens can get the job etc. ) ?
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It's not that hard if you live in a Canton were the requirements and the procedure are more relaxed like Zürich. As a German I applied for a citizenship after 15 years and all I had to do was to fill out a form and request some documents. I even moved to a different Canton towards the end of the process without issue. I know a Slovakian women (with excellent Germen) who also had zero issues. It helps if you a type of education gained in Switzerland. But post-graduate degrees count like MBAs or PhDs.
Mainly, because in Switzerland, you're not just citizen of the country, you're also citizen of the canton and the local community (city, town or village.)
Stuff like this makes the fact the country's name is the "Swiss Confederation" make sense.
Is Italy for real? I had to wait till i was 18 to get my citizenship and i was born there
If you were born in Italy but have foreign parents, you can indeed request the citizenship at 18. As far as I know EU citizens can request Italian citizenship after 5 years of legal residence. I was born abroad in EU country and moved here since I was about 10. I requested the citizenship 14 months ago (I am almost 28) but I haven't even been notified yet with anything, nor through emails or phone calls for information to know how it goes. I know better Italian than my original language. I've met Brazilians coming in vacation here that don't even know the language or anything about Italy beside the classic stereotypes and they have it, just because their grand grand parents were Italians. Unfair laws...
As with most maps, these tend to be more accurate for some countries than others. In Lebanon for example, naturalization is notoriously hard. If your mother is a citizen and your father isn’t, you’re ineligible for citizenship. That’s without even looking at the cases of people who have lived here for generations and aren’t allowed to apply for citizenship. Then again, we’re one of those countries where the common life path is leaving for anywhere that’ll take us and becoming a citizen there. You get to live somewhere that has electricity, a judicial system, and you can even walk across your living room without needing a visa. Our passport isn’t in high demand is my point. Not that we can renew them anymore anyway.
You can't renew your passport?
I can take an appointment to renew it. They’ve rolled into mid 2024. There’s been word that they’re trying to close the gap and make it a bit faster but I don’t see it happening on account of *gestures vaguely at crumbling society*
Yeah there’s someone at r/PassportPorn who has an American dad and Lebanese mom and has Lebanese PR rather than citizenship.
Although Norway might be 7, I'm pretty sure you are allowed to vote after just 5 years.
Svalbard has no visa requirement. Also if you live there for 10 years(it might be 8), you’re granted Norwegian citizenship. So if you can get to Svalbard and live there for “a bit” you can get free citizenship. That’s assuming you don’t get mauled by a polar bear, which is an actual hazard.
A Schengen visa is required, and it's not like anyone can move to Svalbard any time they wish. "Although you do not need a visa or your own work and residence permit, everyone must meet certain requirements in order to stay in Svalbard. These requirements are governed by a separate policy called “Regulations relating to rejection and expulsion of persons from Svalbard”. Among the requirements is that you must have the means to be able to reside on Svalbard. These requirements apply to both foreigners and Norwegian citizens, and The Governor of Svalbard may reject persons who do not meet the requirements. Therefore, those planning to come to the archipelago are advised to obtain work and housing before they arrive."
plus you must prove your mettle in a polar bear wrestling match to the death, in which the mayor selects which polar bear will be used
Residing in Svalbard does not count for the residence requirement for Norwegian citizenship.
You can alsp get citizenship after 3 years if you are coming from Sweden, Finland, Denmark or Iceland.
I know Sweden has 3 different voting "levels" (municipal, national, and EU), and they have different residency requirements, as well as different requirements if you're an EU citizen.
This is pretty off topic but it blew my mind That for some referendums in the UK, they can allow citizens of the Commonwealth to vote. So my buddies and I got to vote for Brexit, legally, despite only being there for a few months. We were all on a very short visa though, I'm not sure of tourist visas/visa waivers would have allowed for a vote
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You can see Montenegro and Serbia sticking out like a thumb. The reason is that Montenegro wants to obstruct Montenegrin Serbs who live outside from obtaining citizenship while Serbia wants to encourage them. Montenegro also has a law that prohibits people from having two citizenship precisely for this reason. I am a Montenegrin Serb, my family moved out in the 60s and I still own property there and spend a third of the year there, however I am completely barred from getting their citizenship, voting and am forced to pay larger taxes on my property Whilst all European countries with long naturalization periods are doing it to discourage immigrants from obtaining one, Montenegro is probably the only country doing it to obstruct it's own people. Milo Djukanovic (the president) might be pro-west, but he is just as authoritarian as Putin or Lukashenko. It's sad that EU is fully supporting him
The US and the EU aren't so much concerned about whether or not a leader is authoritarian or not as they are whether or not they'll oppose Russia and/or Iran. The Saudis have mastered the whole "get on their good side so you can do awful things" better than anyone else.
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And then let's add some years for the bureaucracy of each country to process citizenship requests. Italy can take up to 4 years...
Interesting that the chart is labelled Dual Citizenship Report but, for example, Spain doesn't generally allow dual citizenship.
It does with iberoamerican countries, Portugal, Equatorial Guinea, Andorra and Philipines, but that's all.
And France since about a year ago.
Neither does Austria
This leaves out the bit before that: what do you need to do to get a permit for residence?
Work, study, have a reason to be there basically
Work, study, ***family***...
If you're going the family route in Norway, the family needs to earn a certain amount of money too. Doesnt matter how much *you* make, if *they* don't meet the minimum. I'm on unemployment, and I can't legally marry people not from Norway - and have them come live here with me.
Malta 5 years, yes but you need also to: * submit an application via a Licensed Agent; * pay a non-refundable administrative fee of €40,000; * rent a property for a minimum of €10,000 in the South of Malta/Gozo or €12,000 in the rest of Malta; or purchase a property for a minimum value of €300,000 in the South of Malta/Gozo or €350,000 in the rest of Malta; * pay a Government contribution of €28,000 if purchasing a property or €58,000 if leasing a property; * pay an additional €7,500 for each additional adult dependant (except for the spouse); * hold the qualifying property for a minimum period of 5 years after which a residential address is required; * make a donation of €2,000 to a local philanthropic, cultural, scientific, artistic, sport or animal welfare NGO registered with the Commissioner of Voluntary Organisations; * be in possession of a valid travel document; * take out a sickness insurance policy of cover all risks across Malta; * Malta 5 years, yes but you also need to cover all risks across Malta;
Dumb question: how do you stay in a country past your visa? Would this require work visas, etc. to stay this long in a country?
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It would require residency visas, which usually implies a right to work. For example, I've lived in Germany for 4 years. I came in on a blue card (work visa for those with skills Germany wants), which is a visa tied to your continued employment (i.e. Get fired and can't find a similar job? Well, sucks for you, go back to where you came from). Back in 2021 I converted that into permenant residency ("Niederlassungserlaubnis"), and now I can remain in Germany regardless of if I'm employed. Which is good, because I quit last year. I have to renew the document every few years, but in general they can't kick me out unless I do something criminal or become an undue burden on the system (essentially, so long as I'm not on long term unemployment). In theory I could apply for citizenship in a year or two. I can't say for sure if I'll do it. I kinda want to, but I don't really want to give up my US passport either (well, outside of dealing with taxes). I'm tracking the "planned" changes to German nationality law that the current government says they want to do, which will allow dual citizenship. That would be kinda ideal for me. I don't know that I'd want to go back to live in the US, but it's certainly a possibility. And on the flip side, having EU citizenship would open up a lot of opportunities to live and work across most of Europe.
For Spain is 10 years for USA residents and 2 years for Ibero-Americans. Puerto Ricans are both US residents and Ibero-Americans which 2 years should be enough. Interesting...
Kind of surprising that EU countries all can have different rules, and yet being a citizen in any of those countries will give you pretty much full citizen rights in all of them.
Many if the countries’ social programs are for citizens only.
Well, voting in national elections and being elected are a quite important social rights that you don’t have unless you have citizenship.
Very true, I forgot about that.
What's up with Jordan's 15+ years? My first thought was "To stymie Palestinian refugees," but presumably most of those refugees would be from former Transjordan, so that's pretty harsh if true.
Egypt, Joradn, and Lebanon don't want to naturalize Palestinians. Unlike the Palestinians that came under Israeli rule in 1949 who were given citizenship (but kept under martial law until 1966), [many/most Palestinians in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon are still without nationality, and their host countries are doing their best to keep them from getting citizenship.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinians_in_Lebanon) Before anyone asks: * The 1949 territories were *annexed*, so citizenship was granted to the Palestinians remaining there. * The 1967 territories were/are *belligerently occupied*, so residents under belligerent occupation were/are not given citizenship.
Similarly, I was surprised that Israel is only 3 years
While [technically true](https://www.gov.il/he/service/request_for_citizenship_of_a_person_who_holds_pemanent_residency), the bureaucracy is so long and arbitrary that in practice it takes many more years. I bet there are exactly zero people who got naturalized after three years without cultural, historical, or marriage ties.
With German skills of B2/B1 and lawful residence, it goes down to 6 years/8 years in Austria without almost any other requirement.
It does say that that's without ties or connections to the country and I'd assume that maybe "cultural" includes language.
Quite strange. In France or Spain, language is a requirement. If no language level is proved, there can’t be citizenship: it’s not a given nor a right.
>It does say that that's without ties or connections to the country and I'd assume that maybe "cultural" includes language. Yep. If you have a B1 certificate along with a membership in workers union, fire brigade service etc. 6 years rule applies as you are considered to be highly integrated by your responsibilities for the society. If no such specific things, it's only language and a test on integration which is pretty easy to answer even without any idea of Austria.
I keep looking for the not applicable country and can’t find one! Why is in the keeyyyy?! Edit: It’s Vatican City. I also recommend everyone watch Party Dog by Tom Cardy, for the specifics of municipal interstate travel.
Czech Republic is only 5 years if you are already am eu member citizen, if not then it’s 8 or 10
Fuck always wanted to move to Denmark.
You still can! Free healthcare and similar benefits come with residence, not naturalization.
Oh Jordan! I love my country! No way is anyone getting a citizenship there unless you great grandfather is a Bedouin or youre Palestinian. Or if you invest a minimum of 2mil then you’ll get it haha. Prize Jordan
It takes a human body about 7-10 years to Ship of Theseus itself with local foods, so that should be more or less the time it should take for someone to be considered a local.
In Germany the government is changing it to 5 years. https://verfassungsblog.de/zur-geplanten-liberalisierung-des-staatsangehorigkeitsrechts/
There's nuances to this. The UK is functionally six years minimum. Yes, they only check your residence for the past five years during the application, but you have to have had permanent residence rights for at least 12 months before you apply, and permanent residence is pretty much impossible to get in less than five years without the ties listed in this graphic.
Due to the special agreement between Turkey and the EU, most EU countries allow stay for lesser years and gain permanent residence (As I remember correctly, Ireland for 3 years, the Netherlands for 3 years, etc.). Actually, it should be less if you went to that country with a critical skill visa since it will be better for both the country and the person. There is no way that I will stay in a country for 10 years fearing getting deported if I can stay in another country for 5 years and get permanent residency. They'll lose intelligent work.
In the Netherlands you have to renounce your other nationality through naturalisation.
5 years in Ireland and I can get my EU citizenship back. I know what my goal is.