FOI release: Applications for British Citizenship

In accordance with Freedom of Information Act 2000 the British Government, has published recent  statistics on the number of applications for naturalisation as a British citizens received in the last 5, 10 and 15 years. The following figures are stated:

• from January 2010 to June 2014 – 899’045 applications
• from January 2005 to June 2014 г – 1’781’201 applications
• from January 2000 to June 2014 г – 2’177’440 applications

The largest groups of applications by citizenship were from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Africa and China.

In most cases the applications were approved, and the percentage of the refusals is not significant and tends to decrease from year to year. For example, the number of refusals decreased from almost 10% in 2000 to 3.5% over the last years. Two main grounds for refusal are the following: not  of good character, exceeding the limit of absences. The other reasons are delay in replying to enquiries from Home Office and insufficient knowledge of the English language and Life in the UK.