German citizenship: descent, naturalisation, marriage and dual nationality

Identify the route before counting years

Ordinary naturalisation: what five years actually means

The residence period is one condition. The current Act also requires clarified identity and nationality, an eligible residence status, the prescribed constitutional commitments, livelihood conditions, sufficient German, knowledge of the legal/social order and an acceptable criminal/security position. Not every temporary permit qualifies at the time of grant.

The ordinary language benchmark is B1. Statutory age, disability, illness, hardship and specified historic-worker provisions can alter particular requirements; they should be applied to the actual person rather than treated as a general waiver. Household income and benefit receipt need the current rule and exceptions checked, not an assumption that any employment contract is sufficient.

The government confirmed that the exceptional three-year integration route ended on 30 October 2025. Older brochures describing “five years, or three with C1” are therefore not a reliable current offer. Meeting the applicable residence period gives a basis for assessment, not a guaranteed processing date.

Marriage, partners and children

A recognised marriage or registered partnership with a German citizen can support the §9 route after three years of lawful habitual residence and two years of the relationship, subject to the other conditions. Marriage abroad does not itself issue a German passport. The Act also contains a narrowly defined widow/divorce provision involving a German minor child; it is not a general relationship-breakdown exemption.

A spouse/registered partner and minor children may be considered for joint naturalisation under §10(2) even without their own full five-year period. This is a discretionary family provision, not automatic inclusion. A child under 16 uses an age-appropriate language-development standard; older applicants should not assume the same concession.

German marriage law recognises marriages between people of the same or different sexes. Immigration guidance also recognises qualifying registered foreign partnerships. The legal form and evidence of a foreign relationship still need to be checked; informal cohabitation is not automatically equivalent to a registered partnership.

Descent and the one-year registration trap

A child normally acquires German citizenship at birth through a German parent. Where legal paternity recognition or determination is required, the statutory timing matters. Establish that the parent was actually German at the relevant date; a later naturalisation does not retrospectively make the parent German at an earlier birth.

A significant exception applies to a child born abroad where the German parent was also born abroad after 31 December 1999 and habitually lives abroad. Unless an exception applies, a birth-registration application must reach the competent authority or German mission within one year of the child’s birth to preserve acquisition. Where both parents are German, the Act specifies when the limitation applies to both. Restoration cases have additional protections.

For historic family claims, collect the original birth, marriage, migration and naturalisation records across generations. An ancestor’s place of birth or German-sounding surname is not evidence of a complete citizenship chain. The Act’s declaration and persecution-restoration routes have different eligibility and documentary tests.

Dual nationality and what the passport does not change

German law now generally permits multiple nationality. The 2024 reform removed the former general renunciation requirement and the ordinary loss rule for voluntarily acquiring another nationality. That does not control the other country’s law, and it does not reverse every loss that happened under earlier German law.

Check all nationalities separately before a voluntary acquisition. Tax residence, reporting, military or other duties can follow different rules from nationality. German citizenship supports EU citizenship rights, but it is not evidence that a person has ceased tax residence elsewhere.

Application evidence, costs and timing

Apply to the competent nationality authority for the actual residence or overseas route. Prepare identity, civil status, lawful-residence chronology, language/knowledge evidence, income and the information needed for security/criminal checks. For descent or restoration, the family-history evidence replaces much of an ordinary naturalisation file.

The statutory ordinary naturalisation fee is €255. A jointly naturalised minor without own income under the stated rule pays €51. Specified restoration and declaration procedures are fee-free under §38; translations, documents and passports are separate. An authority backlog is not the legal qualifying period, so request the current local process without treating an estimate as a promise.