Naturalisation After 5 Years: The Full Eligibility Checklist

Fiona Macdonald
21 hours ago
5 min read

Five years, not eight. That is still the rule — § 10 Abs. 1 StAG was changed during the last revision of the citizenship act. What has changed is the route that was faster: the three-year track for special integration achievements was repealed on 30 October 2025 and there is no grandfathering, so applications that were already pending when it went are decided without it. Five years is now the shortest standard road there is, unless you are married to a German citizen.

Lawful residence — and the residence title you hold

Five years of lawful, habitual residence, with identity and current nationality clarified. The second half of this test is where good applicants talk themselves out of applying. § 10 Abs. 1 Nr. 2 does not require permanent residence. It accepts an unlimited residence permit, a Blue Card EU, a Swiss-agreement permit — or any other residence title except the purposes it lists out, which include study (§ 16b), job-seeking (§ 20), the ICT card (§ 19), subsidiary protection (§ 25 Abs. 3 to 5) and § 104c. An ordinary skilled-worker permit under § 18b qualifies. You do not have to hold a Niederlassungserlaubnis first, and waiting to get one before applying is a common and expensive mistake. Long absences can still break the five years — see the separate article on gaps in residence.

Supporting yourself

You must cover your own living costs and those of dependants without SGB II or SGB XII benefits (§ 10 Abs. 1 Nr. 3). Three exceptions are written into the provision, and the second one is worth knowing: it applies if you are in full-time work now and have been for at least 20 of the last 24 months. The third covers a spouse or registered partner living with such a person and a minor child. The first is for the Gastarbeiter and Vertragsarbeitnehmer generation who are not responsible for their reliance on benefits.

German at B1

B1 on the Common European Framework, fixed by § 10 Abs. 4 Satz 1. Every remaining variation runs downward, not upward: children under 16 need only age-appropriate German, the Gastarbeiter generation needs only to manage orally in everyday situations, hardship under § 10 Abs. 4a reduces the test to oral competence, and § 10 Abs. 6 waives it entirely for illness, disability or age. Since the three-year route was repealed there is no longer any path that asks for C1.

The Citizenship Test

Knowledge of the legal and social order (§ 10 Abs. 1 Nr. 7) is normally proved by passing the Einbürgerungstest (§ 10 Abs. 5). The preparation course is optional — the statute says so. The same exemptions as for language apply under § 10 Abs. 6, and the Gastarbeiter and hardship cases are exempt from the test as well.

Criminal record — the actual thresholds

§ 10 Abs. 1 Nr. 5 asks for no criminal conviction at all, and § 12a then says what is ignored: juvenile educational measures, fines up to 90 Tagessätze, and suspended prison sentences up to three months that were remitted at the end of the probation period. Multiple sentences are added together, with one Tagessatz counting as one day. A slight excess over those limits can be excused case by case. Foreign convictions count if the act would be punishable here and the proceedings met rule-of-law standards. None of this leniency applies where the conviction was for an antisemitic, racist or otherwise inhuman offence and the court expressly found that motive (§ 12a Abs. 1 Satz 2).

The two declarations

Two separate commitments, both in § 10 Abs. 1. Nr. 1 is the declaration of loyalty to the free democratic basic order, with a statement that you neither pursue nor support — and have not supported — activities directed against it. Nr. 1a, added in 2024, is the commitment to Germany’s special historical responsibility for National Socialist tyranny and its consequences, in particular the protection of Jewish life, and to peaceful coexistence and the prohibition on waging a war of aggression. These are not a formality: under § 11 Satz 1 Nr. 1a, naturalisation is excluded if there are factual indications that either declaration is untrue.

Keeping your current citizenship

You must still establish your identity and your current nationality. What you no longer have to do is give either up. The renunciation requirement in § 10 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 was repealed, along with § 12 and § 25, with effect from 27 June 2024 — so multiple nationality is now generally accepted, and a German who voluntarily acquires another citizenship no longer loses the German one.

The ten-year bar nobody mentions

A provision added on 24 December 2025 deserves attention because it did not exist when most guidance on the 2024 reform was written. § 35a StAG bars naturalisation for ten years where a naturalisation has been withdrawn for nefarious reasons, or where the authority finds in the procedure that an applicant deceived, threatened or bribed, or knowingly gave false or incomplete information about a material requirement. The finding takes effect immediately: an objection or a court action does not suspend it. It is a strong argument for getting a complicated history disclosed and explained at the outset rather than discovered later.

Common mistakes

Counting five years and assuming the rest will follow.
Waiting for a Niederlassungserlaubnis before applying, when the permit you already hold qualifies.
Leaving B1 and the test until the file is otherwise ready, then waiting months for a slot.
Forgetting that a long absence can stop the five-year timeline.
Still believing you must renounce your other citizenship, or that the three-year route is available.

When to get a lawyer

Get advice if you have any benefit history, employment or residence gaps, a criminal record of any size, a residence path that changed purpose along the way, or anything in your file that could be read as a false statement. Most of these have an exception or a threshold attached, and the difference between meeting one and missing it is often a matter of months or of how the history is presented.

We get your naturalisation application right

Fiona Macdonald takes clients through the full checklist and prepares a complete naturalisation file, so that a requirement nobody flagged does not cost you a year. Send your history and you will get a straight answer on whether you are ready.

Book a consultation with Fiona Macdonald →