Number of foreigners who acquired Finnish nationality dropped by 25%

The number of foreigners who acquired the Finnish citizenship decreased by 25% during the year 2018, according to the latest figures on population and justice published by Statistics Finland.

The numbers released by the Finnish statistical office show that last year Finnish nationality was granted to 9,211 foreign citizens permanently residing in Finland. The descent compared to 2017 is huge: citizenship was granted to 3,008 people less. In relative terms, it is a 25% drop.

According to Statistics Finland accounts, in 2017 there were 12,219 people who benefited from this legal option.

Citizenship granted most to Russian citizens

Finnish citizenship was granted by far most often to citizens of Russia, numbering 1,766 of those who acquired the nationality. However, this was 992 fewer than in the year before.

Somali citizens were the second largest group of recipients of Finnish citizenship, numbering 856. The third largest national group in terms of Finnish citizenship acquisitions were Iraqis, 621. Estonian citizens were fourth, numbering 541.

More women than men

By gender, more women than men got this benefit. Of the persons having received Finnish citizenship, 4,876 were female and 4,335 male. The average age for women was 28.8 years and for men it was 27.7 years.

Among the persons having been granted Finnish citizenship, 2,712 were aged under 18 and 227 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 1,446 persons, representing 16% of all those who received Finnish citizenship.

126,000 persons with dual citizenship

In 2018, altogether 97% of those having been granted Finnish citizenship also retained their former citizenship.

At the end of 2018, there were 125,843 persons permanently resident in Finland who held the citizenship of some other country in addition to Finnish citizenship.

Of them, 21,757 were native-born citizens of Finland who have been granted citizenship in another country and 104,086 were foreign citizens who have been granted Finnish citizenship.

The largest dual nationality groups at the end of 2018 were citizens of Russia (31,697), Sweden (8,058), Somalia (6,416), Estonia (5,814), and Iraq (4,780).