If your naturalisation is alleged to have been obtained fraudulently, we examine the allegation and defend your lasting status within the agreed instructions. Naturalisation is not generally conditional on income, marriage or personal circumstances remaining unchanged. However, if it was obtained through certain forms of intentional deception or other dishonest means, the authority may withdraw it. This involves more than the earlier application: the consequences for children, spouses, continued residence and EU citizenship must also be carefully distinguished.
When naturalisation may be withdrawn
We assess the specific allegation about identity, a language examination, criminal proceedings or family circumstances against your earlier statements and evidence. These topics are not, however, an automatic list of grounds for withdrawal. The decisive issues remain which requirement applied in the particular proceedings, what information was requested or supplied and whether the conduct in question induced the authority to grant unlawful naturalisation.
Another statutory basis may also be decisive: if the person should already have been naturalised under a different provision at the time of naturalisation, this must be considered when examining unlawfulness. This must be distinguished from an entitlement whose conditions are only met years later. Conditions met subsequently do not retrospectively make the earlier decision lawful.
We distinguish typing errors, understandable misunderstandings and accidental omissions from intentional conduct. Even an objectively incorrect certificate does not, by itself, prove that the applicant knew it was incorrect. Conversely, an error in the authority's own checks does not automatically negate deception that contributed to the outcome. The entire course of events therefore matters, rather than just a single sentence in the application.
Subsequent changes differ from earlier deception
Anyone who becomes unemployed, divorces or falls ill after a proper naturalisation does not lose citizenship as a result. The position may be different if a separation material to naturalisation already existed before the certificate was handed over and was deliberately concealed. In that case, the later divorce is not being penalised; the issue is whether the original decision was based on false premises.
The same applies to criminal offences: an offence committed after naturalisation does not create a general ground for withdrawal. By contrast, deliberately concealing a criminal investigation that was already underway may be legally significant because the naturalisation decision might have had to be suspended. Criminal guilt and the obligation to accurately disclose known proceedings are separate questions. The article on correction, criminal liability and the bar on naturalisation discusses false information in detail.
The ten-year withdrawal period and retrospective loss
Under § 35(3) StAG, withdrawal may take place only within ten years after notification of naturalisation. The period generally begins when the naturalisation certificate is handed over, not when the earlier application was made, a fee was paid or the passport was later issued. Nor does the period begin only when the authority learns of deception.
Two points in time must be distinguished here: the authority must withdraw naturalisation in time; under § 35(6) StAG, loss of citizenship requires the withdrawal decision to be final and no longer open to challenge. This may occur, for example, when the time limit for a legal remedy expires unused or court proceedings are definitively concluded. A hearing concerning an intended withdrawal therefore does not yet mean that citizenship has been lost.
Once withdrawal becomes final and no longer open to challenge, loss takes effect retrospectively from the original date of acquisition. This retrospective effect explains why the acquisition of citizenship by a child born subsequently may also be affected. It does not mean, however, that all legal consequences in every area of life are reversed without further examination. Identity documents, residence permits and the citizenship of other people are each governed by their own provisions.
For older naturalisations, we also assess which withdrawal period applies in time. The present ten-year period replaced a five-year period in 2019. If the earlier period had already expired before 9 August 2019, the extension did not retrospectively reopen the possibility of withdrawal. This does not establish blanket five-year protection for every naturalisation before 2019. The date the certificate was handed over, the expiry of the period applicable at the time and the later administrative decisions are needed.
Even proven deception requires a balancing exercise
§ 35 StAG confers discretion. The authority must establish the conditions for withdrawal and then consider the circumstances for and against withdrawal. The public interest in lawful naturalisations carries considerable weight. Nevertheless, the decision must go beyond merely finding that false information has been discovered.
For your personal interests, we set out the time since naturalisation, your circumstances in Germany and the specific effects on your family. We evidence these interests with concrete facts rather than merely invoking integration. For example, it is possible to explain who is cared for in the household, which family relationships would be affected by loss of status and what particular professional or health consequences would be involved.
Naturalisation requirements that have since been met may also play a role in the legal assessment. This does not, however, establish a certain entitlement to retain the existing naturalisation or to be naturalised again immediately. In particular, the current exclusion rule in § 35a StAG must be considered. The separate article on renewed naturalisation after withdrawal explains this second stage of assessment.
Statelessness and EU citizenship
For the person whose naturalisation was fraudulently obtained, the prospect of statelessness generally does not preclude withdrawal under § 35(2) StAG. The authority must nevertheless establish the actual consequences. Whether an earlier nationality continues or can be reacquired is also governed by the law of the other state concerned. A German withdrawal decision does not automatically restore an earlier foreign nationality.
If loss of German citizenship also means loss of EU citizenship, proportionality under EU law must additionally be considered. This includes the specific consequences for the person concerned and their family, as well as the possibility of regaining an earlier nationality. This assessment is required even for naturalisations obtained through deception. It is not, however, a general guarantee against withdrawal.
Family members do not automatically lose their status too
Spouses and children naturalised together with a parent
A family may have been naturalised together, but legally each person holds their own citizenship. If withdrawal for one family member affects the lawfulness of another person's naturalisation, § 35(5) StAG requires a separate discretionary decision for each person affected. A decision against one parent does not replace this assessment.
We first establish for each family member whether there was any legal dependence at all. If the spouse was naturalised on the basis of entirely independent qualifications, their naturalisation may be lawful regardless of the other partner's. Where a person was naturalised together with a family member on the basis of a shorter period of residence, the connection may be closer. A joint application and a shared certificate ceremony do not answer this question on their own.
The balancing exercise must weigh the person's own involvement in the deception against their interests deserving protection. For children, their best interests must expressly be included. Relevant factors include their age, development, ties to school and family and their own position in the proceedings. An allegation against the father or mother must not be treated as the child's own misconduct without further justification.
Children who became German by birth
The position is different for a child who did not receive their own naturalisation certificate but acquired citizenship by birth. There is no administrative act naturalising the child that could be withdrawn under § 35(5). Instead, § 17(2) StAG is decisive. This provision regulates the retrospective disappearance of certain conditions for acquisition by operation of law.
If, for example, a parent's naturalisation is undone retrospectively, this may remove the basis for the child's acquisition by birth. However, the law protects the child through several independent exceptions. In the context of withdrawing a parent's naturalisation, the child retains citizenship in particular if they are already five years old when the relevant decision becomes final and no longer open to challenge. Citizenship is also retained if the child remains related to a German parent, would otherwise have met the requirements for acquisition by birth in Germany or would otherwise become stateless.
Here, the age limit relates to the later point in time specified by law, not the child's age when investigations begin. Furthermore, any one applicable protective rule is sufficient. A younger child is therefore not necessarily affected. Conversely, the five-year rule must not be applied without examination to a child who was themselves naturalised. In that situation, the different route of acquisition and its own conditions for withdrawal are decisive. Similarly, the exception to age protection for certain decisions concerning acknowledgement of paternity under § 85d AufenthG belongs to a different legal ground: § 17(2), sentence 2, no. 1(b). The withdrawal of a parent's naturalisation discussed here is instead regulated under point (e). The legislature excludes only point (b) from the five-year protection, not withdrawal of the parent's naturalisation.
By way of illustration: of two siblings, one may have been born before and the other after their parent's naturalisation. The older child may have been naturalised together with the parent, while the younger acquired citizenship by descent. Although they have the same parents and live in the same household, their situations must be assessed separately. The family needs the respective birth certificates, naturalisation certificates and evidence of any other nationalities for this purpose.
Hearing, decision and judicial protection
Before an adverse withdrawal decision is made, the person must generally be given an opportunity to comment. The hearing serves to clarify the facts and personal consequences. It is helpful to compare the information being challenged systematically with the documents, translations and communications actually submitted. We identify missing documents specifically. A requested extension of a deadline can only be relied on once it has been granted.
Through file access, we clarify which declaration and official information underpin the allegation of deception. In our response, we distinguish facts, legal assessment and personal consequences. If criminal proceedings are also underway, cooperation in the administrative proceedings and defence rights in the criminal proceedings must be coordinated. New assumptions or unchecked explanations do not help clarify the matter.
Depending on state law, a withdrawal decision may first be challenged by an administrative objection or directly by an action for annulment. Unlike the refusal of an initial application, the purpose is to have an adverse administrative act set aside. The usual time limit is one month; the correct remedy, its prescribed form and the relevant date of notification or service are decisive. Missing or incorrect information on legal remedies may trigger different time limits. Service, deadlines and administrative objection or direct court action explains this in more detail.
The administrative court reviews the statutory requirements and whether discretion was exercised lawfully. Under § 114 VwGO, it generally does not substitute its own decision on what is appropriate for the authority's discretion. Errors in the allegation of deception and overlooked family interests therefore both matter. Court proceedings also protect only against the decisions actually challenged; separate decisions against family members must likewise be addressed.
Clarify residence and further decisions in good time
Loss of citizenship does not conclusively answer whether the person concerned must leave Germany. Residence entitlements and protected legal positions must be examined separately. However, the previous residence permit does not automatically revive following withdrawal. Under certain conditions, § 38 AufenthG may apply by analogy to a residence permit after withdrawal; a new permit is nevertheless required.
For this assessment, we also consider your residence documents from before naturalisation. If that residence was itself obtained by deception, the situation differs from one involving a lawful earlier settlement permit. Family-based residence rights may, in turn, exist on a different basis. Knowledge of the loss is decisive for the six-month application period in § 38(1), sentence 2 AufenthG. In cases of withdrawal, that knowledge arises only once the withdrawal decision becomes final and binding. An earlier hearing therefore does not start this period. We assess the necessary residence application in parallel; it does not replace a timely challenge to withdrawal.