Russians, Somalis and Iraqis, the most benefited by concessions of Finnish citizenship

The population of Finland continues to grow thanks to the arrival of foreigners. And among them there are more and more people every year who apply for the Finnish citizenship with success.

According to the last figures published by Statistics Finland, during the year 2017 the Finnish citizenship was granted to 12,219 foreign citizens permanently resident in Finland.

This number exceeded clearly the previous record reached in 2016 and is the highest during Finnish independence. Altogether, 2,844 more citizenships were granted than in 2016. In relative terms, the number of concessions grew by 30% compared to the previous year.

Source: Statistics Finland

Granted mostly to Russian citizens

In 2017, Finnish citizenship was granted by far most often to citizens of Russia, numbering 2,758 among those having been granted Finnish citizenship. This was 730 more than in the year before, according to the numbers published by Statistics Finland.

Somali citizens were the second largest group of recipients of Finnish citizenship, numbering 957. The third group that received most Finnish citizenships were the citizens of Iraq, 742, and the fourth was formed by Estonian citizens, with 705 beneficiaries.

The average ages

The average age of persons having received Finnish citizenship was 28. The average age for women was 29.1 years and for men 27.3 years. Of the persons having received Finnish citizenship, 6,375 were women and 5,844 men. The relative share of women was 52% and that of men was 48%.

Among the persons having been granted Finnish citizenship, 3,544 or 29% were aged under 18 and 258 were 65 years or older. Examined by five-year age groups, the number of persons having received citizenship was highest among those aged 30 to 34, in all 2,005 persons representing 16% of all those who received the Finnish citizenship.

Source: Statistics Finland

Dual citizenship

Altogether 98 per cent of those having been granted Finnish citizenship during the last year retained also their former citizenship.

At the end of 2017, there were 117,024 persons permanently resident in Finland who held the citizenship of some other country in addition to Finnish citizenship. Their number grew by 11% from the previous year. Of them, 21,099 were native-born citizens of Finland who have been granted citizenship in another country and 95,925 were foreign citizens who have been granted Finnish citizenship.

The largest dual nationality groups at the end of 2017 were citizens of Russia (30,088), Sweden (7,759), Somalia (5,590), Estonia (5,291), and Iraq (4,152).

Among dual nationality groups, the number of Russian citizens increased most in absolute numbers compared to the previous year, by 2,632 persons. However, in relative terms the number of Somali citizens increased most, by 20%.