Amendments to the Law on Citizenship have been adopted in Germany. Now, those convicted of providing false information when applying for German citizenship will be prohibited from re-submitting such applications for 10 years.
"We are imposing a ban on naturalization for anyone who commits fraud.This applies, in particular, to those who want to become a German citizen using fake language certificates, CDU/CSU representative Alexander Tom said in an interview with the Bild tabloid.Foreigners applying for a German passport must have lived in the country for at least five years and confirm that they have learned German to the B1 level or higher.
According to article 35 of the Law on Citizenship, the authorities already have the right to revoke citizenship in case of fraud.If a person obtains German citizenship, and later it turns out that he forged some documents when applying, the authorities can revoke his German citizenship if it was obtained within the last 10 years.
Over the past five years, the Federal Administrative Agency has stripped 1,009 people of their German citizenship, 270 of them in 2025.However, it is not specified whether the deprivation of citizenship was related to forged documents.Even if we assume that all 1,009 people had their citizenship revoked due to the fact that forged documents were found in their possession, this group still makes up a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands of foreigners whose applications were reviewed and found to comply with all legal requirements, writes I am Expat.
Source: I am Expat
