More than 20,000 people keen to regain Finnish citizenship

A total of approximately 21,500 former Finnish citizens or their descendants applied to have their lost citizenship restored within the five-year time limit provided under the current Finnish Nationality Act.

The transitional provision was in force from 1 June 2003 until 31 May 2008. According to the provision, a person who had lost his or her Finnish citizenship due to gaining the citizenship of a foreign state, for example, was entitled to apply to have his or her citizenship restored by declaration without having to move to Finland. The opportunity was also offered to descendants of former and current Finnish citizens, regardless of whether they had ever held a Finnish citizenship.

Between the beginning of June 2003 and the end of October 2008, a total of 10,547 people had been granted a Finnish citizenship under the transitional provision. Of these, a total of 6,012 (57 percent) were former citizens and 4,535 (43 percent) were descendants. The final distribution of former citizens and descendants will become clear once all declarations have been processed.

Half of the declarations lodged within a space of five months

The number of declarations skyrocketed towards the end of the transitional period: approximately 9,100 declarations – almost half of the total number of declarations received over the five-year period – were lodged between January and May this year. From April onwards, the Finnish Immigration Service was receiving an average of one hundred citizenship declarations per day, when the daily number of declarations had previously been between 5 and 10.

The applicants represented more than one hundred different nationalities. The ten most prominently featured countries were Sweden (5,126), the United States (4,178), Canada (3,562), Australia (2,796), Germany (1,368), Switzerland (887), Russia (592), the United Kingdom (507), France (344) and Israel (287).

Decisions delayed until next year

The flood of declarations at the beginning of the year clogged the Nationality Unit of the Finnish Immigration Service to such an extent that the received declarations were only entered into the register in late autumn. This has also led to longer processing times.

Approximately 9,000 declarations are still pending at the moment. The goal is to deliver decisions on all declarations by the end of 2009, and the majority by July.

By the end of October this year, decisions had been delivered to 1,384 persons. Of them, a total of 1,303 (94 percent) persons got positive and 29 (2 percent) negative decisions. The remaining 4 percent were either deemed inadmissible or related to cancellations and expirations.

Further information for the media: Tiina Suominen, Director, Nationality Unit, Finnish Immigration Service, tel. +358 (0)71 873 0431, e-mail: tiina.suominen@migri.fi

11.12.2008