Apply for naturalisation

Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion makes you an equal cit­i­zen of our coun­try with all the rights and oblig­a­tions of a Ger­man citizen.

ℹ New processes

No con­sul­ta­tion appoint­ment required!
No appoint­ment required to apply!
You can now send the nat­u­ral­iza­tion appli­ca­tion direct­ly by post or drop it in a sealed enve­lope in your letterbox.

New process (overview)

1

Appli­ca­tion by post

2

Pro­cess­ing

3

Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion inter­view
(in person)

4

Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion

Apply for naturalisation

Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion pro­ce­dure and required documents
  • Use the ↗ Quick Check to check whether you meet the requirements.
  • Com­pile the required doc­u­ments
  • Sub­mit the com­plete appli­ca­tion in writ­ing by post.
    Postal address
    Pub­lic order and cit­i­zens’ office
    Cit­i­zen­ship office
    Kaiser­allee 8, 76133 Karlsruhe
  • You will be informed in writ­ing after your appli­ca­tion has been checked.

Apply for naturalisation

A claim to nat­u­ral­iza­tion exists if the require­ments spec­i­fied in the law are met. If there is no enti­tle­ment to nat­u­ral­iza­tion, dis­cre­tionary nat­u­ral­iza­tion may be con­sid­ered.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion for for­eign nationals

↗ Apply­ing for nat­u­ral­iza­tion with nat­u­ral­iza­tion enti­tle­ment
↗ Apply­ing for nat­u­ral­iza­tion with­out enti­tle­ment to nat­u­ral­iza­tion
↗ Apply­ing for nat­u­ral­iza­tion for the spouse or reg­is­tered part­ner of a per­son with Ger­man citizenship

Nation­al­i­ty card

A cit­i­zen­ship cer­tifi­cate is issued on appli­ca­tion as bind­ing proof of Ger­man cit­i­zen­ship.
Fur­ther infor­ma­tion
↗ Apply for a cit­i­zen­ship card

20

The Cur­rent pro­cess­ing time is about 20 months.

255

The Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion costs 255 € per per­son. And 51 € for under­age chil­dren with­out their own income who are nat­u­ralised with their parents.

5

You must have lived in Ger­many for at least five years with­out any interruption.

FAQ Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion

Do I need to take the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion test?

By suc­cess­ful­ly tak­ing the nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion test, you can prove that you have the knowl­edge of the Ger­man legal and social sys­tem and the liv­ing con­di­tions in Ger­many that you need in order to be nat­u­ralised.
↗ Fur­ther infor­ma­tion
❗Pass­ing a nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion test does not replace proof of suf­fi­cient Ger­man lan­guage skills at lev­el B1 of the Com­mon Euro­pean Frame­work of Ref­er­ence for Lan­guages. This proof is required for nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion addi­tion­al required.

Nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion after three years of residence

In excep­tion­al cas­es, you can apply for Ger­man cit­i­zen­ship after less than five years. For exam­ple, if you make a spe­cial con­tri­bu­tion to soci­ety and endeav­our to inte­grate quick­ly.

You must each ful­fil the fol­low­ing require­ments:
☑️ You have a good com­mand of the Ger­man lan­guage at least lev­el C1 of the Com­mon Euro­pean Frame­work of Ref­er­ence for Lan­guages.
☑️ You have been resid­ing in Ger­many law­ful­ly and reg­u­lar­ly for at least three years.
☑️ You can par­tic­u­lar­ly good Demon­strate inte­gra­tion achieve­ments, for exam­ple through par­tic­u­lar­ly good per­for­mance at school or at work. Or you can do vol­un­tary work, for exam­ple with the fire brigade, or get involved in the social sec­tor.
☑️ You can finance the cost of liv­ing for your­self and your dependants.

Can my fam­i­ly be nat­u­ralised together?

Yes, fam­i­lies can be nat­u­ralised togeth­er if all require­ments are met.
❗ Chil­dren under the age of 16 can only be nat­u­ralised togeth­er with one parent.

How old do you have to be to apply for naturalisation?

You must be 16 years old or old­er. For chil­dren and young peo­ple under the age of 16, the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tive must apply for nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion. This is usu­al­ly the parents.

❗ As a rule, nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion is not pos­si­ble for chil­dren and young peo­ple under the age of 16 only togeth­er with one par­ent possible.

Do I have to give up my pre­vi­ous nationality?

You do not have to give up your pre­vi­ous citizenship(s) in order to be nat­u­ralised.
You can have sev­er­al nation­al­i­ties under Ger­man law. How­ev­er, oth­er reg­u­la­tions may apply in the coun­try or coun­tries to which you belong — for exam­ple, you may auto­mat­i­cal­ly lose your pre­vi­ous cit­i­zen­ship if you are nat­u­ralised in Ger­many.

It is impor­tant to obtain com­pre­hen­sive infor­ma­tion about the legal reg­u­la­tions of your coun­try of ori­gin before nat­u­ral­is­ing. If you have any doubts, you should con­tact the diplo­mat­ic mis­sion (embassy or con­sulate) of the coun­try in ques­tion. Here an overview of ↗ Embassies and consulates

Do spous­es and chil­dren have to sub­mit their own application?

It is gen­er­al­ly not suf­fi­cient to tick the box on the form stat­ing that your spouse or child should also be nat­u­ralised. Each per­son aged 16 and over must sub­mit a sep­a­rate appli­ca­tion.

Excep­tion: For chil­dren under the age of 16 who are to be nat­u­ralised, the legal rep­re­sen­ta­tives (usu­al­ly the par­ents) can also sign their own nat­u­ral­i­sa­tion appli­ca­tion.

See also Do I have to sign the application?

My tem­po­rary res­i­dence per­mit has expired or will expire soon, do I have to have it extended? 

Yes, you need com­pelling a valid res­i­dence per­mit. It is also not enough if you have the right to obtain a res­i­dence per­mit. Take care of this in good time.

❗ If you have a open-end­ed Right of res­i­dence and only the Card util­i­sa­tion has expired, it does­n’t matter.

Which author­i­ty should I con­tact if I do not live in Karlsruhe?

If you live in a city dis­trict, the city admin­is­tra­tion is respon­si­ble for you. If you live in a dis­trict, it is the dis­trict admin­is­tra­tion.

The con­tact details of the ↗ Karl­sruhe Dis­trict Office can be found here.

What hap­pens after a neg­a­tive decision?

If you do not agree with the rejec­tion of your appli­ca­tion, you can lodge an objec­tion. Please fol­low the instruc­tions in the writ­ten rejec­tion. If the appeal is unsuc­cess­ful, you can file a com­plaint with the admin­is­tra­tive court.

If your appli­ca­tion is reject­ed, you can resub­mit it if necessary.

This page was last updated: 2025-02-11