Naturalisation in particular life circumstances

We assess how family life, studies, care responsibilities or a refugee background affect your naturalisation application and the evidence it requires. Belonging to a particular group is not the only deciding factor. What matters is which specific rule fits your situation. This overview explains the connections and helps you choose the relevant detailed articles.

Not everyone who wants a German passport needs to be naturalised. A child may already have become German at birth. Acquisition through adoption or special statutory rights to acquire citizenship by declaration may also be relevant. Especially where nationalities differ, we first check each person's existing German status. The absence of a German identity card does not prove that someone is a foreign national. The different routes to citizenship are explained in the overview “Already German without naturalisation?”.

If naturalisation is necessary, entitlement under § 10 StAG is the usual starting point. In principle, it requires five years of lawful habitual residence in Germany. Further requirements include, in particular, established identity and nationality, a qualifying residence status, requirements concerning subsistence and, normally, German language skills at B1 level. Civic knowledge and the absence of grounds for exclusion must also be assessed. The former general reduction to three years for special integration achievements has been deleted from the current legislation. Special family-related rules continue to exist alongside this. The relevant provision is the current § 10 StAG.

Ongoing education or training does not automatically rule out naturalisation. Equally, attending a German school or university is not enough on its own. The first distinction is between periods of residence that can count towards the required duration and the right of residence that must exist when naturalisation takes place. A period may be relevant to lawful habitual residence even though the current residence title is insufficient for acquisition under § 10 StAG.

This is particularly important for residence permits for vocational training or university study. § 10 paragraph 1 sentence 1 number 2 StAG expressly lists various excluded residence purposes, including §§ 16a and 16b AufenthG. By contrast, a school or university student who holds, for example, a qualifying family-based right of residence or a permanent right of residence is in a different position. The activity of “studying” and the legal purpose of residence are not the same thing. Any necessary change of residence title must actually be possible and effective; a plan alone is not enough.

We assess training pay, maintenance, BAföG and other income so that your application presents a clear account of how your living costs are covered. Not every state payment is a benefit under SGB II or SGB XII. Nor does every family member necessarily need their own wages if their subsistence is secured in another sustainable way. School reports and certificates may in turn be relevant to language skills or civic knowledge. Which evidence is appropriate for a particular educational path is explained in the article for school pupils, vocational trainees and university students.

For people who have fled their country, three questions must be kept separate: what protection status has been recognised? What residence title do they hold today? How can their identity and existing nationality be established reliably? Refugee protection, subsidiary protection and a national prohibition on deportation are different legal categories. Their consequences for the required residence title may therefore also differ.

Recognition as a refugee does not automatically lead to naturalisation and does not conclusively establish all personal details for every subsequent procedure. At the same time, actual difficulties in obtaining documents must be taken into account. A blanket demand to visit the home country's embassy regardless of personal danger is as incompatible with the required individual assessment as the assumption that every recognised refugee is exempt from further cooperation.

A graduated evidentiary model applies to establishing identity. A passport normally takes priority; further forms of evidence may be considered subject to the conditions of this step-by-step approach. The sequence and whether obtaining documents can reasonably be expected must be assessed together. The article on recognised refugees and other protection statuses provides a detailed explanation.

When preparing your application, we separately establish which documents prove your personal details and what prevents you from obtaining further evidence. A protection decision may prove entitlement to protection without conclusively determining all personal details for the naturalisation procedure. Conversely, the absence of a national passport is no reason to disregard existing family registers, earlier identity documents or other evidence. What matters is their evidential value and a clear explanation of the limits on obtaining documents. The precise sequence and requirements for moving between types of evidence are explained in the detailed article on the five-stage proof of identity.

Not having a passport does not in itself make someone stateless. A stateless person is someone whom no state considers its national under its law. By contrast, an entry stating “undetermined” initially describes a position that has not yet been clarified. An inaccessible consulate or difficulties obtaining a passport do not conclusively answer the nationality question either.

This distinction matters for naturalisation because special rules may depend on actual statelessness. At the same time, personal details must be established. For stateless people born in Germany, an additional independent basis of entitlement may apply, with its own requirements and age-related conditions. We assess this entitlement before restricting the review to general rules. The detailed article on statelessness and undetermined nationality explains which documents can help classify the situation and why simply lacking documents is not enough.

§ 10 paragraph 6 StAG provides for the language and civic knowledge requirements to be waived where they cannot be met because of illness, disability or age. The connection between the limitation and the requirement that cannot be fulfilled is decisive. Reaching a particular birthday or holding a severe disability card therefore does not answer every question. Informative medical evidence explains how the person's health affects learning, remembering, reading, writing or participating in an examination.

§ 10 paragraph 4a StAG also contains a special hardship rule for language skills. Acquiring the normally required skills must be impossible or permanently substantially more difficult despite proven serious and sustained efforts. The authority may then limit the requirement to being able to communicate orally in everyday life without significant problems. This is not a complete exemption from language requirements. However, where this hardship rule applies, the civic knowledge requirement is waived under paragraph 6 sentence 2. Course attendance, support measures, attempts at examinations and individual learning conditions help distinguish these circumstances from an inability caused by illness.

The appointment of a legal guardian for an adult likewise does not automatically mean that the person cannot act for themselves in the naturalisation procedure. § 34 StAG restricts a person's own procedural capacity if they lack legal capacity, or if a guardian has been appointed for this matter and a requirement for the guardian's consent has been ordered under § 1825 BGB. Appointment alone is not sufficient. The authority therefore needs the relevant court documents, including the scope of responsibilities and any consent requirement.

Single parents and people caring for relatives may face considerable difficulties earning enough alongside their care responsibilities. However, this does not create a general statutory exemption from the subsistence requirement. The first step is to examine whether benefits under SGB II or SGB XII are actually needed and whether one of the expressly regulated exceptions applies.

One exception covers people who are currently working full-time and have been in full-time employment for at least 20 of the past 24 months. Another concerns spouses or registered civil partners who live as a family with a person meeting that employment condition and a minor child. This does not establish an equivalent blanket rule for unmarried couples or single parents. For minor children being naturalised together with a parent, the Federal Ministry of the Interior's application guidance contains an additional concession if they live as a family with a parent who benefits from the spouse rule. This must be distinguished from a child's independent entitlement; the overview for children explains the conditions.

If entitlement requirements are missing, we separately assess whether discretionary naturalisation under § 8 StAG with an exception for particular hardship is available. This assessment does not replace an entitlement with a guarantee of success. It does, however, allow significant personal circumstances to be presented on the appropriate legal basis. Further details are provided in the article on older people, people with disabilities, single parents and people caring for relatives.

Life circumstances overlap. A university student who has fled her country may be married to a German citizen; a minor child may have a disability; a spouse caring for someone may satisfy the special family exception to the subsistence requirement. These circumstances are not offset against one another. Instead, the applicable standard and the evidence that satisfies it must be determined for each requirement.

For families, we answer these questions for each person, even where many documents can support several applications.

We also incorporate changes during the proceedings into our assessment. A birth, a change of employment, a separation or a birthday may change the appropriate legal basis. Submitting an application early does not freeze a person's circumstances for the entire processing period. We therefore account for foreseeable developments after submission too. For a systematic assessment of the basic conditions, the overview of naturalisation requirements complements these particular life circumstances.