Number of foreigners who obtained Finnish citizenship fell 19% in 2020

The number of Finnish citizenship grants to foreign-born people decreased considerably in 2020, according to Statistics Finland.

The latest official data show that last year Finnish citizenship was granted to 7,816 foreign citizens permanently residing in Finland.

In total, 1,833 fewer people obtained Finnish citizenship compared to 2019. In relative terms, the number fell by 19% from the previous year.

In 2020, Finnish citizenship was granted by far most often to citizens of Russia, numbering 1,546. This was 400 fewer than in the year before.

Citizens of Iraq were the second largest group of recipients of Finnish citizenship, numbering 602.

The third group were Somali citizens, 541 and the fourth Estonian citizens, 516.

In 2020, altogether 98% of those having been granted Finnish citizenship retained their former citizenship.

Dual citizenship

At the end of 2020, there were 143,256 persons permanently resident in Finland who held the citizenship of some other country in addition to Finnish citizenship.

Of them, 23,615 were native-born citizens of Finland who have been granted citizenship in another country and 119,641 were foreign citizens who have been granted Finnish citizenship.

The largest dual nationality groups at the end of 2020 were citizens of Russia, 34,890, Sweden, 8,987, Somalia, 7,469, Estonia, 6,923, and Iraq, 5,923.

Of the persons having received Finnish citizenship, 4,179 were women and 3,637 men. The average age for women was 30.2 years and 27.7 years for men. The average age for both groups was 29.

Among the persons having been granted Finnish citizenship, 2,158 were aged under 18 and 221 were older than 65.

Examined by five-year age groups, the number of persons having received citizenship was highest among those aged 30 to 34, in all 1,242 persons, representing 16 per cent of all those who received Finnish citizenship.