Amendment to the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz

Anyone who wants to apply for German citizenship will in future have to have lived legally in Germany for at least 5 years. The current option to shorten this period to 3 years if someone demonstrates special integration achievements, speaks very good German, and can support themselves is to be abolished. The Federal Government justifies this by saying that three years is too short to settle sufficiently into German society. The 5-year rule is intended to apply to everyone going forward, without exceptions.