THEMATIC BRIEFING: October 2025 Statelessness determination and protection in Europe: good practice, challenges and risks 3.9. Routes to naturalisation recommended Best practice • • • • State expedites naturalisation procedures for stateless people providing preferential treatment compared to the general rules for foreign nationals. Stateless people are exempted from requirements such as nationality or integration tests, language testing, application fees, or minimum income requirements for naturalisation. Previous criminal convictions or 'good character' requirements do not unreasonably prevent stateless people from naturalising. Nationality laws, rules, procedures, policies, and practices do not discriminate, including against minorities or marginalised groups, directly or indirectly. The only way to resolve statelessness is to acquire a nationality. To reduce statelessness in the migratory context, the 1954 Convention requires that States parties facilitate naturalisation for stateless people on their territory as far as possible.56 States should expedite naturalisation procedures for stateless people, providing preferential treatment compared to the general rules for foreign nationals. 57 This could include exempting stateless people from requirements such as citizenship or integration tests, language testing, application fees, or minimum income requirements. Previous criminal convictions or ‘good character’ requirements should also not unreasonably prevent stateless people from naturalising. 58 Moreover, nationality laws, rules, procedures, policies, and practices should not discriminate, including against minorities or marginalised groups, directly or indirectly.59 Stateless people face significant barriers to naturalisation in all countries. In some countries there are no favourable provisions for stateless people even where there are for other groups such as refugees (e.g. in France, Latvia, and Spain). Residence requirements Residence requirements for naturalisation vary significantly between countries. In some countries, stateless people benefit from a reduced residence requirement in line with refugees, but this is not consistent across all Index countries. In Greece, Ireland, and Norway, countries that do not have a procedure to determine statelessness, stateless people can apply for naturalisation after three years’ lawful stay (reduced from seven in Greece, five in Ireland and eight in Norway). However, the lack of an SDP in these countries makes it difficult for stateless people to evidence eligibility for the reduced requirements and few are able to access the facilitated routes. In countries that have a procedure to determine statelessness, the residence requirement usually ranges between three years (e.g. in the Netherlands and Ukraine) to five years (e.g. in France, Georgia, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, and Türkiye). In Italy, a 2023 judgment clarified that, given the declaratory nature of statelessness status, the residence requirement for naturalisation does not need to be ‘lawful’. Some countries have much longer residence requirements, which unduly prolong stateless people’s access to a nationality (e.g. Montenegro, Spain, and Latvia where the residence requirement is ten years). In some countries the residence requirement is relatively short, but it only applies to those holding permanent residence (e.g. in Belgium, Bulgaria and Hungary), which is difficult and lengthy to obtain in practice. Other countries impose further requirements for stateless people to access facilitated naturalisation, such as Türkiye, where it is limited to holders of a stateless person’s ID document, and in Switzerland, where it only applies to stateless people married to Swiss nationals and stateless children who comply with integration criteria. 25