The investigation by newspaper Welt am Sonntag collected data from 14 of Germany's 16 states. Official figures on naturalisations for 2025 have have not been released.Â
"Germany is experiencing a historic boom in naturalisations," said the newspaper. "Never since the introduction of standardised statistics in 2000 have so many people been naturalised as in 2025."
The latest projection of 309,852 naturalisations exceeds the previous record in 2024 of 291,955.Â
As The Local has reported, some states have already published their preliminary data on the number of people who gained German citizenship in 2025.
Around 69,000 people became German last year in the five largest cities: Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt. Around 39,000 people naturalised in Berlin alone.Â
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No figures are available yet for Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Saxony-Anhalt.
There are also no overall statistics from the states of Lower Saxony, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein. However, the majority of cities and districts in these states provided naturalisation data upon request from Welt am Sonntag.
What's behind the rise in naturalisations?
Authorities say the spike in people gaining citizenship is down to recent developments such as citizenship laws being relaxed by the previous coalition government in the summer of 2024.
The amended law allows German passport holders to be dual-citizens, and it also eased the requirements to naturalise. Foreign residents can apply to become German after five years of legal residence rather than the previous eight years.Â
Meanwhile, the move by some authorities to digitise and update the citizenship process has allowed for a much faster and easier processing of applications.Â
The unstable geopolitical situation is also influencing some people to become German.Â
Syria remained the most common country of origin in many states, while naturalisations of Turkish and Russian nationals also increased in many places. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, 3,841 Russians became German – 7.4 percent more than the previous year.
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Dmitri Stratievski, a political scientist and director of the Berlin Center for Eastern European Studies, told Welt am Sonntag that some people from this group may be aiming to sever their ties to Russia due to the political situation, while others may naturalise for personal reasons.Â
Several cities and districts report that they are currently seeing a decline in the number of applications. But they are already preparing for the next naturalisation boom.
According to estimates by several authorities, an increasing number of Ukrainians are expected to seek German passports in the coming year.
"Since the first major wave of refugees began with the start of the Ukraine conflict on February 24th, 2022, the first refugees will reach the required five-year residency period in the spring of 2027," said a spokesperson for the Aurich district in Lower Saxony.
CDU wants to roll back citizenship law
Some politicians within the conservative CDU and CSU bloc say that having dual citizenship doesn't show a clear commitment to Germany and can make integration more difficult.
"It should therefore be limited to special cases," Hesse's interior minister Roman Poseck told the paper.
Alexander Thorn, CDU/CSU parliamentary group spokesperson on domestic policy in the Bundestag, is also in favour of scrapping dual citizenship.
He also wants to see the naturalisation period increased back to eight years, he told the paper.
READ ALSO: Are Germany's current citizenship laws at risk after far right's latest bid?
With reporting by Amy Brooke
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