A woman holds her naturalization certificate in the citizens' office at the State Office for Immigration (LEA).
© dpa
Berlin has significantly increased the number of naturalizations since centralization a year ago.
The announced target of 20,000 per year was even exceeded in 2024, as Interior Senator Iris Spranger reported. A total of 21,802 Berliners were granted German citizenship at the new naturalization office of the State Office for Immigration last year.
State Office Director Engelhard Mazanke even considers 40,000 naturalizations to be realistic for 2025. That is the number his office has set itself. Since the beginning of 2024, the central naturalization office in Sellerstraße in Wedding has taken over this task. Previously, the districts were responsible for this. In 2023, the number of naturalizations was only around 8,000 and the waiting time was often several years. There was also criticism that the procedure differed from district to district.
The naturalization office took over around 40,000 open procedures from the districts at the beginning of 2024 - all in files, said Mazanke. By June, they had been converted into electronic files by a service provider. Since then, the new authority has been working completely digitally. According to the head of the state office, it is not possible to say how many of the old cases have now been processed. However, around 43,800 additional applications have been submitted digitally over the course of the past year.
The new authority is therefore still facing considerable challenges: "We are still not there yet," said Mazanke. This would require naturalizing roughly as many people as the number of new digital applications. Data on the average processing time could not be provided, said the head of the state office. "But we can see that we are becoming faster in the overall process." The goal for the new year is to process 3,300 to 3,500 applications per month.
There are 179 posts for naturalizations, 40 of which are still not filled, according to the head of the authority. However, this should happen soon, the application procedures have been completed. Interior Senator Spranger said that centralization was the right decision. The state office is now a pioneer when it comes to digitalization. "The work being done here is really good and exemplary nationwide."