An investigation by the regional broadcaster Hessenschau has revealed that some German citizenship applicants are waiting over two years for their application to be processed.

32-month wait period for citizenship in Hesse

Some 36.000 people who are having their citizenship applications processed in the German federal state of Hesse are waiting “up to 32 months" for a response, an investigation by Hesseschau has found.

Processing delays have hit people living in Darmstadt the hardest. In the Hessian city with just over 164.700 inhabitants, citizenship applicants are waiting “up to 32 months" for processing.

In Frankfurt, applicants can expect a wait of 28 months, and in Giessen around two years. Things are better, but only marginally, in Offenbach where applicants wait between 18 and 22 months for processing, and in the state capital Wiesbaden where Hessenschau reports a 19 to 23-month wait.

In Hesse’s third-largest city, Kassel, where 1.728 people applied for citizenship in 2023 and 56 percent more are expected to apply in 2024, the wait is currently between 16 and 19 months. Speaking to the broadcaster, Hesse Interior Minister Roman Poseck (CDU) said that the current wait times were “unsatisfactory”.

Why are citizenship processing times so long in Hesse?

Citizenship processing times are getting longer across much of Germany because of two main factors. Firstly, many people who came from Syria to Germany as refugees around 2015 have recently become eligible for citizenship and second, in June 2024, Germany reformed its citizenship law to allow dual citizenship for non-EU citizens after five years of residency in Germany.

The problem in Hesse is that unlike in some other federal states, the application process begins with an in-person interview, rather than an online application followed by an interview. This means applicants first have to find and wait for an in-person interview appointment before the process of submitting necessary documents can begin. Waiting times for these initial interviews vary in Hessian cities, from seven months in Kassel to eight months in Frankfurt and 12 months in Darmstadt.

Once the documents have been submitted, they must be checked by Hesse’s Regierungspräsidium, the regional council responsible for checking application documents. This stage can add several weeks or months to the entire process and it is at this stage where the documents are piling up. 5.900 applications are currently pending in Kassel, 7.100 in Giessen and 23.000 in Darmstadt, according to Hessenschau.

Pass[t] Genau project hopes to speed up citizenship applications

Prospective Germans in Hesse are not alone in their wait, in Berlin, where 40.000 applications are pending processing, an 18-month wait is considered optimistic. The capital’s application processing centre LEA warns of a “long waiting time”, with no specific estimate given.

Meanwhile, other federal states are making pragmatic moves to reduce waiting times. The Pass[t] Genau project, launched by the German Federal Commission for Migration, Refugees and Integration, is being piloted in two federal states, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Rhineland-Palatinate.

The Pass[t] Genau service trains volunteers to aid residents with their citizenship applications, to prevent incomplete applications from increasing the processing time for others. 

Speaking to public broadcaster SWR back in September, Pass[t] Genau manager Susanne Kolb said that the project could run in Germany’s 14 other federal states. However, establishing it would require other states to organise funding, since the Federal Commission is only currently funding the project in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Rhineland-Palatinate.

To find out more about the project, as an applicant or prospective volunteer, head to the Pass[t] Genau website.

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