T H E G L O B A L S TAT E O F C I T I Z E N S H I P 3.1 FIGURE 3.1 NOMINAL YEARS OF RESIDENCE REQUIRED FOR ORDINARY NATURALISATION, BY WORLD REGION, 2024 The global mean is 7.4 years and the most common requirement is 5 years No. of countries Africa 18 18 mean: 9 years Americas 12 1 mean: 5.3 years Asia 20 6 mean: 8.8 years Europe 15 9 mean: 6.8 years Oceania 4 3 mean: 6.9 years 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 Nominal number of years of residence required Source: GLOBALCIT Citizenship Law Dataset, v3, mode: A06_yrs Worldwide, the legal requirements for ordinary naturalisation are most inclusive in traditional migrant destination countries, the Americas and Western Europe, uneven in Africa and South/Southeast Asia, and most restricted in Central/Eastern Europe, East Asia, the Middle East/Gulf States and Oceania. While global reform trends mean that immigrants are increasingly benefiting from multiple citizenship, as well as territorial birthright citizenship for their children, they face vastly different legal requirements for naturalisation around the world, shaped by each country’s national debates and histories. Residence requirement The universal requirement for ordinary naturalisation is residence, as all countries require legal residence of at least a few years. Over time, immigrants can develop effective links, decide to naturalise and be able to meet all the substantive requirements. So, how long do countries make ordinary immigrants wait before they are officially ‘eligible’ to apply? A majority of immigrants around the world face ordinary naturalisation requirements of five years (58%) or less (9%) in around half the world’s countries. Five years is the most common residence requirement across all regions except Africa, where the requirements are evenly split between five and ten years. Immigrants benefit from shorter residence requirements in 17 countries, particularly in the Americas. 18 Globally, the average required period is seven years. Onethird of the world’s foreign-born live in countries that require more than five years of residence. One in four countries requires 10 years (39 countries) or more (15 countries). In Europe, the 1997 European Convention on Nationality sets the maximum residence period for naturalisation at 10 years in states that have ratified the Convention, whereas periods of over 10 years persist in Africa and Asia. An estimated 19 million immigrants (or 6% of the world’s foreign-born) live in the 15 countries where the wait is more than 10 years for ordinary naturalisation: Equatorial Guinea (40), United Arab Emirates (30), Bahrain (25), Qatar (25), Bhutan (20), Brunei (20), Eritrea (20), Oman (20), Chad (15), Gambia (15), Nigeria (15), Rwanda (15), Sierra Leone (15), St. Kitts and Nevis (14), and India (11). These long delays effectively bar many—if not most—immigrants who may be otherwise eligible to meet the main language, integration, economic, and good character requirements. Years of residence are not the only part of the residence requirement, because not all years of residence are always counted towards naturalisation. As a result, short residence requirements are not always shorter in practice. Countries sometimes require naturalising immigrants to have permanent and/or continuous/uninterrupted residence. Permanent residence usually means that immigrants must first obtain permanent or long-term residence permits. The path