Several countries are looking at increasing residency requirements for citizenship
At his desk in Rome, 28-year-old Briton Anthony Payne reflects on the Italian referendum that could have changed his life – but didn’t.
If Italians had voted “yes” to the centre-left backed proposal to shorten the naturalisation period from 10 years to five, Payne – who works as an English teacher – would have finally been eligible to apply for citizenship.
But only 30 per cent of Italians went to vote on 8 and 9 June, falling well short of the 50 per cent threshold needed to make votes binding.
“To be honest I didn’t let myself get disappointed because allowing myself to be disappointed would mean me expecting it to pass,” says Payne, from Northwich in Cheshire, who has been living in the Eternal City for the past seven years.
“I was very frustrated though and I allowed myself that. It would have been nice to have citizenship, but the country has spoken.”
To make matters worse for people like Payne, of the small percentage of people who voted, 65 per cent were in favour of changing Italy’s 10-year rule to five years. But Italy’s hard-right government had discouraged people from voting.
“Had [prime minister] Giorgia Meloni not suggested that people should go to the beach instead of the polls and not announced she was boycotting the vote on television, it might have turned out differently,” Payne said.
“To have an elected government tell their population not to vote in a democratic country isn’t just shocking – it’s atrocious.”
The result came just weeks after Italy passed an urgent decree to limit citizenship via bloodline to two generations maximum. Previously anyone with a proven Italian ancestor who was born on or after 17 March, 1861 (the date of Italy’s reunification) could apply.
Italy is not alone in Europe in requiring that residents should live in the country for 10 years before applying for citizenship – Spain and Austria enforce the same rule. It’s the maximum residence period for naturalisation in states that have ratified the 1997 European Convention on Nationality.
But a broader shift is under way. Last year, Finland extended its residency period to eight years from five, limiting any permitted absences from the country in that time to no more than one year.
In January, a Swedish government inquiry proposed doing the same as its Nordic neighbour, extending the period from five to eight years, with a plan to enforce it from 1 June, 2026, along with stricter language and civics tests.
Then last month Portugal announced proposals to double its term for citizenship through naturalisation from five years to 10 for most people, aligning with Spain, Austria and Italy. Under the heavily discussed proposal, immigrants from Portuguese-speaking countries such as Brazil will have to wait seven years to obtain citizenship, while children born to foreign parents will no longer be granted Portuguese citizenship unless at least one of the parents has been resident there for three years.
The country has seen a huge rise in immigration in recent years, and tightening requirements to secure Portuguese citizenship was a dominant issue in the election earlier this year. Portugal will also require foreign citizens to demonstrate knowledge of Portuguese culture and citizens’ duties and rights.
The decree is yet to be sent to parliament, but is expected to be approved.
“We’re at a turning point in Europe when it comes to citizenship through naturalisation,” says Professor Maarten Vink, co-director of the Global Citizenship Observatory. “What we’re seeing now we haven’t seen for three decades.”
The trend is reflected in the success of anti-immigration parties in recent European elections, such as Patriots of Europe who came third in the 2024 European Parliament elections securing 84 seats out of 720.
Parties of the radical right have also made gains in national elections, such as Austria’s Freedom Party, which came first in last September’s vote, and Portugal’s Chega, which leads the opposition after securing a quarter of seats in May.
Vink points out that while Germany lowered citizenship through naturalisation requirements last year from eight years to five – closer to the European average – some countries are moving in the opposite direction.
“There’s a lot of political pressure and we’ve found the way governments deal with this pressure is to copy and imitate the far right in terms of granting citizenship,” he explains.
He points to the UK Government’s recent proposal to double the standard residency requirement from five years to 10.
He says while 10 years is the maximum period, obtaining citizenship can take far longer due to bureaucratic processes.
“It might be that someone applies, and gets citizenship after 13 years instead of 10 because of paperwork,” Dr Vink continues. “This is problematic because evidence shows that long waiting times for citizenship reduces integration within communities.”
In the UK, Jessica Wellings, based in Pembrokeshire, is reconsidering whether her planned move to Portugal is worth it because of the proposal. A former outdoor instructor in the EU before Brexit, she recently took seasonal work in France.
“Knowing they are thinking of changing the naturalisation process from five to 10 years has definitely made me think twice,” says Wellings. “It was a bit of a shock and has made plans a bit harder, but I can understand why it’s up for discussion if locals are being priced out of their homes.
“Of course, on a selfish level, I’d love to integrate into Portuguese life and become an EU citizen once more.”