Since 1995, 147,893 people have become citizens of Latvia through naturalization. This year marks the 26th anniversary of the naturalization process.
What is naturalization?
It is a person's belonging to a certain country. In Latvia, belonging to a group of citizens is determined by the Citizenship Law. Latvian citizenship forms a permanent legal connection of a person with the state of Latvia, and it is formed by the mutual rights and obligations of a citizen and the state.
Naturalization is a process through which a person is admitted to Latvian citizenship. It is one of the ways of acquiring Latvian citizenship, and it is an important instrument of integration that promotes the cohesion of Latvian society.
On 1 February 1995, the acceptance of applications for admission to Latvian citizenship through naturalization was started, and already in July, the first pledge of allegiance to the Republic of Latvia was signed.
Within four years - twenty thousand applicants for Latvian citizenship
Within three years (up to 8 September 1998), ten thousand applicants for Latvian citizenship, who were admitted to Latvian citizenship through naturalization, received a document certifying the status of a Latvian citizen.
But a little more than a year later, in October 1999, ten thousand more citizenship applicants received a Latvian citizen's passport, already amounting to twenty thousand people.
Improvements in the naturalization process
In 2013, the Citizenship Law was supplemented with amendments on the possibility of dual citizenship and the procedure for granting citizenship to children of non-citizens and children of Latvian citizens born abroad was clarified.
Also, following the recommendation of the Saeima Public Cohesion Commission, Section 18 of the Citizenship Law was amended incorporating that henceforth applicants for Latvian citizenship shall make a promise of allegiance to the Republic of Latvia in a solemn ceremony.
Have all those interested already underwent naturalization process?
- Currently, 306,365 people, who do not have Latvian citizenship. Of these, 209 thousand are non-citizens of Latvia, 97,178 are citizens of another country and 160 are stateless.
- Statistics show that the interest of third-country nationals in Latvian citizenship has increased over the last decade.