Naturalisation
41,291 foreign nationals acquired Swiss citizenship in the course of the year,
16.3% of them under the simplified naturalisation procedure.
As a general rule, anyone who has lived in Switzerland for ten years and has a C settlement permit can apply for ‘regular naturalisation’. The process is quicker for people who are married to a Swiss national or for third-generation foreign nationals: in these cases, ‘simplified naturalisation’ is possible.
About half of those who were naturalised were from Germany, Italy, France, Portugal or Spain.
33% were from another European country.
The number of people naturalised remained practically the same as the previous year.
Over the past 20 years, this number has averaged around 40,000.