On 30 March 2020, Eurostat published its annual statistics on the acquisition of citizenship in the European Union (EU), covering the period between 1 January and 31 December 2018.

During that period, the 27 Member States granted citizenship to 672,300 persons having their usual residence in the Union’s territory. This marks a 4 per cent decrease in naturalisations compared with 2017.

Most of the naturalised individuals were non-EU citizens or stateless. In 13 per cent of all naturalisations, EU citizens acquired the citizenship of another Member State.

The highest naturalisation rates were recorded in Sweden (7.2 citizenships granted per 100 resident foreigners), Romania (5.6) and Portugal (5.1). Naturalisation rates below 1 citizenship acquisition per 100 resident foreigners were registered in Estonia and the Czech Republic (both 0.4), Lithuania (0.5), Denmark and Latvia (both 0.6), Austria (0.7), and Slovakia (1.0).

The full report and an interactive visualisation are available at the Eurostat website.