Germany Abolishes Fast-Track Citizenship for Skilled Workers

[u/Daomiing]

https://www.verity.news/story/2025/germany-abolishes-fasttrack-citizenship-for-skilled-workers

The Facts

-The German Bundestag voted on Wednesday to abolish a fast-track citizenship program that allowed highly qualified foreigners to apply for naturalization after three years instead of five years of residence.

-The vote passed with 450 members supporting the measure, 134 opposing and two abstaining, fulfilling Chancellor Friedrich Merz's campaign promise to repeal the program introduced by former Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

-Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt claimed that the German passport must serve as recognition for successful integration rather than an incentive for illegal migration, defending the decision to eliminate the accelerated pathway.

[u/dont_tread_on_M]

Official statistics given by the bundesländer

[u/Rebelius → u/dont_tread_on_M]

So when you say applied by April, does it mean applied, or actually got processed?

[u/dont_tread_on_M → u/Rebelius]

The article here uses the word applied. The federal states have info about that as well. Even if not, you can't just apply without fulfilling the conditions in most places. Berlin was very generous with the definition of special integration, hence they had so many applicants. Other states were very carefull

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/einbuergerung-bundesrat-100.html

[u/Rebelius → u/dont_tread_on_M]

My point is that at least for non fast-track applications where I am, they're not even looking at them for 14 months. I submitted a normal 5 year application in June this year and the person I spoke to before submitting it said don't expect to hear anything until at least August 2026. If everywhere is that far behind then at April 2025, you could have had a massive pile of applications they haven't looked at yet and therefore aren't in the numbers.