Data issued by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, showed that Syrian citizens topped the list of those obtaining German citizenship in 2025.
The number of naturalized Syrians reached around 65,600, representing 20% of all naturalizations in the country, or one in every five people granted citizenship.
Although Syrians have continued to top the list since 2021, according to the Statistics Office, their number fell by 21% compared with 2024, when 83,200 Syrians were naturalized.
Overall, the data showed that around 332,500 foreigners obtained German citizenship in 2025, an increase of 14%, or 40,500 people, compared with 2024, when 292,000 naturalizations were recorded.
This marks the fifth consecutive year in which the number of naturalized people has risen.
It is also the first time since statistics began being recorded in 2000 that the number of naturalizations has exceeded 300,000 annually, according to preliminary results issued by Germany’s Federal Statistical Office.
The increase is attributed to the Citizenship Modernization Act, which entered into force on June 27, 2024. The law reduced the required residence period for citizenship from 6 to 7 years to as little as 3 years and allowed naturalized citizens to retain their original nationality.
Germany’s Statistics Office said the average length of residence at the time of obtaining citizenship reached 12.4 years in 2025, compared with 11.8 years in 2024.
Syrians obtained citizenship after an average residence period of 7.9 years, compared with 7.4 years the previous year.
The data confirmed that in previous years, Syrian citizens often sought citizenship as soon as they met the formal requirements.
Preliminary results also indicate that 467,400 naturalization applications were registered in 2025. Syrians again accounted for the largest share, 15% of total applications, equivalent to 69,700 requests, and were also the largest group among applications completed during the same year.
In this context, the number of Syrian citizens migrating to Germany fell by 46.5% in 2025.
According to preliminary migration statistics issued by the Federal Statistical Office, registration authorities recorded about 40,000 Syrian migrants between January and September 2025, compared with more than 74,600 migrants during the same period in 2024.
Since the fall of the former Syrian regime, the number of Syrian asylum seekers in Germany has declined significantly, as the German government assesses that protection grounds no longer apply to a large number of them, according to the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The German newspaper said the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees can review whether protection grounds still exist if conditions change in the country of origin, through what is known as protection withdrawal procedures.
However, these procedures are not currently applied generally to Syrians. They are limited to specific cases, such as unauthorized travel to Syria or committing crimes.
Financial Incentives for Syrians’ Return
The German government is studying new incentives to encourage Syrian refugees to return voluntarily to Syria.
Government sources told the German outlet Focus Online that the Federal Ministry of the Interior is currently considering granting Syrian refugees a return bonus of up to 8,000 euros.
The German outlet said more than 900,000 Syrians who do not hold German passports currently live in Germany, including more than 500,000 who hold temporary residence permits based on subsidiary protection or refugee status.
The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag cited February statistics from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, which indicate that 3,678 Syrian refugees returned voluntarily from Germany during 2025.
The post Syrians Lead German Naturalizations in 2025 appeared first on Enab Baladi.