Content
About the statistics
Definitions
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Name and topic
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Name: Naturalisations
Topic: Population
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Responsible division
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Division for Population Statistics
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Definitions of the main concepts and variables
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Resident
Who is regarded as a resident of Norway and where in Norway a person shall be regarded as a resident, are laid down in Law on Population Registration from 16 January 1970. The regulations of the law have been amended several times, most recently with effect from 1 February 1998. For details about the term resident, read here under the point "Definitions".
Acquisition of Norwegian citizenship
Pursuant to the Act on Norwegian nationality of 1 September 2006, it is possible to become a Norwegian citizen automatically, by notification or upon application. The main rule on acquisition upon application is that any person has a right to a Norwegian citizenship if the applicant at the time the administrative decision is made fulfills the following criteria and that the application is not in conflict with the interests of national security or foreign policy:
- has provided documentary evidence of or otherwise clearly established his or her identity
- has reached the age of 12
- is and will remain a resident of the realm
- fulfills the conditions for a settlement permit laid down in § 12 of the Immigration Act
- has spent a total of seven years in the realm in the last ten years, with residence or work permits of at least one year's duration
- satisfies the requirements regarding Norwegian language training
- has not been sentenced to a penalty or special criminal sanction or has observed the waiting period
- satisfies the requirement regarding release from another nationality
Other conditions apply for certain other groups, including:
- persons who arrived in the realm before reaching the age of 18 must have spent a total of five years in the realm.
- persons who are married to a Norwegian national and share a residence with his or her spouse. For these persons the period of marriage to a Norwegian national with a shared residence in the realm must add up to a total of at least seven years. The period of residence and the period of marriage to a Norwegian national may be concurrent. In practice, the residence permit provisions require that the applicant has been resident in the realm for the last three years. The same rules apply for registered partners and cohabitants.
- Nordic nationals may be entitled to Norwegian citizenship after having resided in the realm for two years.
- former Norwegian nationals. The applicant must have resided in the realm for the last two years.
- stateless persons must have resided in the realm for the last three years.
- children of persons who are acquiring or has acquired Norwegian nationality must have resided in the realm for the last two years.
A child becomes a Norwegian national at birth if his or her father or mother is a Norwegian national. If the father dies before the child is born, it is sufficient that the father was a Norwegian national when he died.
A child who is adopted by a Norwegian national becomes a Norwegian citizen by adoption if:
- the child is under the age of 18 at the time of the adoption. The adoption order must be issued by Norwegian authorities pursuant to the Adoption Act.
- through a foreign adoption that is valid in Norway.
Nordic nationals can also become Norwegian nationals upon application. Among other things, the requirement is that the applicant has been resident in the realm for the last seven years. If the applicant is a former Norwegian citizen there are no requirements of residence period. The application is accepted if he or she is resident in Norway.
Age is a person’s age at the time of the naturalisation.
Marital status
After the Act on Registered Partnerships from 1 August 1993 the following marital status were effective 1 January 1994: Unmarried (not previously married), married, widow/widower, divorced, separated, registered partner, separated partner, divorced partner and surviving partner. Before 1994 only the first five codes applied.
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Standard classifications
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Follows the Standard for Countries and Citizenship in Population Statistics.
Administrative information
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Regional level
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The nation, counties, municipalities.
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Frequency and timeliness
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Annual
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International reporting
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Not relevant
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Microdata
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Not relevant
Background
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Background and purpose
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This statistic shall, together with other subjects of population statistics, help to show the changes taking place which affects the composition of the population.
Statistics on naturalisations have been published every year since 1977.
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Users and applications
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The statistics have a broad range of users and applications such as research institutes within demography and living conditions, public administration, press, broadcasting, and private persons.
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Equal treatment of users
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No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 08 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months advance notice is given in the Statistics Release Calendar. This is one of Statistics Norway’s key principles for ensuring that all users are treated equally.
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Coherence with other statistics
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Migration Statistics giving inter alia migration to/from Norway of foreign citizens in the course of one year can have an effect on the number of Norwegian citizenships awarded seven years later.
In Population Statistics, the number of Norwegian and foreign nationals can be seen in connection with allocations of Norwegian citizenship in the two preceding years. Directorate of Immigration (UDI) has also compiled statistics on granted citizenship for 2016. They published figures in January and have registered 13,704 naturalisations. The difference is for the most due to that Statistics Norway includes delayed messages about the transition to Norwegian citizenship that has not been received by the population register in time to be included in the statistics for the calendar year the event took place.
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Legal authority
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§§ 2-1, 2-2, 3-2.
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EEA reference
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Not relevant
Production
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Population
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The statistical material comprises granted Norwegian citizenship to people who are registered as resident in Norway. Delayed messages in the Population Register have been treated in different ways over time in the statistics. A delayed notification of a naturalisation is one that is not made in time to be included in the statistics for the calendar year the event took place. The treatment of these lags affects whether and how the events are included in the statistics for the specified period.
The statistics for the years from 2002 includes mainly naturalisations that were actually registered annually. Registered transitions from previous years are counted in the statistics for year n if the message came in the period February 1, year n until 31 January year n + 1. This implies a permitted delay of one month.
The statistics for the years 1999 to 2001 has the same scope, except that the registration of incidents from previous years had a permissible delay of two months, allowing registered transitions from previous years to be counted in the statistics for year n if they were made in the period from March 1 year n even 29 February year n + 1.
The statistics for the years 1985-1998 included naturalisations which were registered in that year and also those from the previous year which was registered too late to be included in the survey that year.
Population Statistics includes all residents in Norway. The main rule to be regarded as a resident is that the stay is at least six months' duration even if it is temporary. Likewise shall permanently settlers in Norway with a stay abroad for more than six months not be regarded as residents in Norway. For people from other Nordic countries staying temporarily in Norway and Norwegians staying temporarily in other Nordic countries, this rule is waived. Details about the term residents can be found under the point "Definitions".
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Data sources and sampling
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The statistics are based on the Population Register.
The Population Register receives information from copies of citizen letters which the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) issues. In addition, a person can be granted Norwegian citizenship in the Population Register when a paternity notification or corrections of parenting information makes it clear that they have at least one parent with Norwegian citizenship. The statistics are calculated by counting the number of naturalisations, excluded those caused by delayed paternity notifications.
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Collection of data, editing and estimations
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In addition to controls done in the Population Register, Statistics Norway perform controls for statistical purposes.
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Seasonal adjustment
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The numbers in this production are not seasonally adjusted.
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Confidentiality
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If a number in a table consists of three or fewer units and disclosing these units can lead to identification of individuals, the number is rounded up or the table cell left empty.
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Comparability over time and space
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Comparability back to 1977 is good although the scope of the statistics vary somewhat over time. Read more below the point "Production", subpoint "Population". When comparing on a regional level over time one must be aware that municipalities have merged and borders have been regulated in this period. This also applies to changes of citizenship and codes for immigration and emigration countries.
Accuracy and reliability
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Sources of error and uncertainty
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Some errors made during the collecting and processing of the data are unavoidable and include coding, revision and data processing errors etc. Extensive efforts have been made to minimize these errors, and we regard these types of errors to be relatively insignificant.
The quality of the data from the Population Register is generally very good for statistical purposes. Two objections are missing and delayed messages and registration of residence. Delayed notifications cause naturalisations to be registered in the wrong calendar. This becomes less problematic when one adds up numbers for several years.
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Revision
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Not relevant