(06 March 2019) – In 2017, around 825 000 persons acquired citizenship of a Member State of the European Union, down from 995 000 in 2016. The majority were non-EU citizens or stateless.
Moroccans, Albanians, Indians, Turks, Romanians, Pakistanis, Poles and Brazilians represented together about a third (34%) of the total number of persons who acquired citizenship of an EU Member State in 2017.
Romanians (25 000 persons), Poles (22 000) and Britons (15 000) were the three largest groups of EU citizens acquiring citizenship of another EU Member State.
The number of UK nationals acquiring citizenship of another EU Member State more than doubled in 2017 (from 6 555 people in 2016 to 14 911 in 2017, or +127%).
In 2017, the highest naturalisation rates were registered in Sweden (8.2 citizenships granted per 100 resident foreigners), Romania (5.9) and Finland (5.0), followed by Portugal (4.5), Greece (4.2) and Cyprus (3.9).