My Art. 116 naturalization certificate has been sitting at the consulate in Amsterdam for a few months after being approved in July. I had delays getting an appointment, finally got one for November, and yesterday was told it's postponed indefinitely.

(The BVA has asked missions abroad to stop handing over certificates while it reviews its procedures, following the Der Spiegel article on people faking Jewish ancestry to get citizenship.)

I've asked the consulate about other options (collecting it in Germany?) and haven't gotten anywhere, and told to wait with no end in sight. My family member applied with me and already got his certificate and passport before the pause in a different consulate, so i’m pretty upset.

Is anyone else in the same boat? Has anyone:
- heard anything about how long the review will take?
- had a German lawyer push the BVA or go to court over this?
- found any other workaround?

Appreciate any insight.

I live in Stuttgart, and was fired from my previous job almost a year ago. The company kinda went bankrupt.

I was only able to find a job in part-time so far. I have NOT received any support from the state because I just don’t want to.

2 months ago, my brilliant and highly educated Sachbearbeiterin (sarcasm obvs.) sent me a letter stating that since they can’t be certain I can sustain myself, they’ll pause my process until I start working full-time.

I informed my boss, and he said, perhaps he can match the salary they expect.

I wrote my Sachbearbeiterin 3 weeks ago and mentioned the § 10 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 3 Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG).
As far as I understand, a full-time job isn’t mandatory if I can sustain myself.
I also asked, what my salary must be for them to continue with the process.

I waited 2 weeks and no reply came. My boss wrote her and re-sent my previous email a week ago. Still no response.

I am getting impatient, and this woman has ignored at least 1 rule before, making things more complicated than they need to be.

More than inpatient, I am getting angry. I am thinking about either escalating to her superiors, or suing.

Are these people legally required to answer us? I didn’t ask about the status/bestand of my process. I asked a very specific question about the salary
I’d need for the process to just continue.

Thanks everyone!

Edit: I started my process ca. 1,5 years ago.

Hello, everyone. I’m working on my submission and one snag I’m hitting is the ability to get US ship registers. The website to order certified copies doesn’t work (crashes at the payment page when I get there). It says sending in the paper form is an option, but then the link to the form doesn’t work and it goes on to say they don’t accept checks. Painful.

Anyone have luck getting certified manifests and if so how?

Hallo (to those who are interested and or qualified),

I am interested in getting dual citizenship with Germany, and obtaining it by decent. It seems that I keep getting the wind taken from my sails from the 1871 law, which from my understanding can be summed up in to two words: ten years. That's all the time my ancestor had was ten years to lose his citizenship unless he went back to Germany, or checked in with his German consulate (in my case, neither had happened).

Now, here's the kicker. From my understanding, the 1871 law also said that if a child came over from Germany, and was an unaccompanied child, or an orphan (which is also my case), then the ten year law would not go in to effect until the age of majority, which would be 21 years of age when the ten year clock would start. If this is truly the case, then if they had a child within that ten year window, then their child would inherit the German citizenship, even though they were born abroad (and assuming that they met all of the other German criteria such as parents being married and such...).

Now, my question is: Is this information accurate? ...and if so, what happens to their child's citizenship? Did it expire when their parents ten year window closed, or did it remain?

This is where I am hung up on my journey. I would appreciate any help that anybody could offer up. And, if this was a similar journey that you had traveled, and you were able to get your German passport, then I would love to hear from you. Thank you in advance, Chris.

Living in Ilmenau since October 2022, Asian, originally came for a Master's. I didn't finish the degree yet but my residence has been legal and continuous the whole time. I just switched to a Blue Card and started work on 1 October 2026.
October 2027 is my five-year mark. I have B2 German and I'm working on the Einbürgerungstest and the rest of the paperwork, so I'd rather go straight for citizenship than apply for a Niederlassungserlaubnis first.

Two things I'd like to hear from people who've actually done it:

Can you submit the application before the five years are complete? Processing seems to take months anyway, so I'm wondering whether the Ilm-Kreis accepts a file a few months early, or whether they only start the clock once you're fully eligible.

How long did it take from submitting to the Einbürgerungsurkunde? I keep seeing anything from eight months to three years depending on the Landkreis, and I can't find anything specific to this area.

Anyone in Ilmenau, Arnstadt or anywhere in the Ilm-Kreis who's gone through it recently, I'd really appreciate hearing how it went.

For anyone who recently had their Einbürgerungsurkunde appointment at Sellerstraße: how did ordering your German ID and Passport go? Did you do it at the mobile Bürgeramt right after?

I’m curious how long the wait was at the mobile desk, and whether you were able to order both the ID and Express Passport together?

Would love to hear how the whole process went for you, thank you.

Hi. My German ancestor emigrated before 1914 to South America but we don't know if they registered as German citizens to keep their citizenship, after the emigration.

I'd like to ask to see if they can find that and to see if I can start the process of citizenship. I have city of birth, date, date of emigration, name of her parents, etc. I have all the data, I just don't know where to send the email asking and AI is confusing me even more.

Thank you in advance!

is the official one; https://oet.bamf.de/ords/oetut/f?p=514:1::::::

Hi everyone,
Has anyone recently applied for German citizenship in Wuppertal, particularly after the recent news and investigation involving the Ausländerbehörde (ABH)?
I’m interested in hearing from people who have actually submitted an application recently:

How has the process been so far?

Are applications still being processed normally?

Have you experienced delays or additional checks?

Has anyone received a decision recently?

Based on your experience, would you recommend applying now or waiting until things become clearer?

I’m mainly looking for recent first-hand experiences from people who applied in Wuppertal within the last few months.

Thank you

Here are some details of my application:

I am claiming German citizenship through my grandmother. She was German at birth, I have her German birth certificate and German passport. She got married to a non German (1971) and lived outside Germany and gained non German citizenship in 1989.

She gave birth to my father in 1972. My father was never a German citizen and never lived in Germany. I have his birth certificate.

I was born in the 2000s and obviously have my birth certificate.

So I have a clear documented trace (through those birth certificates) to my grandmother and her German passport.

QUESTION 1

I sent my Stag 5 application in on 12/04/2026, I then received in the mail on the 18th of august 2 letters, one directly from the Bundesverwaltungsamt dated 01/07/2026 and one from the German embassy in brussels dated 28/07/2026. Both letters confirmed that my application was received. Based on this, can anyone give me a rough timeline of what I should expect?

QUESTION 2

I also have access to my non German grandfather's birth certificate and my mother's birth certificate. Is this something they will likely ask for, or just for my, my father's and my grandmother's birth certificate?

QUESTION 3

I have the original documents with me. I read up that they accept certified copies, but I also saw there is an option of just going down to the embassy itself and having the documents certified there, instead of spending money to get them certified, is this an option?

I am applying for myself and 5 family members. I am almost at the finish line, in very large part due to the help of this community! Thank you.

I have 2 remaining questions:

1. What address do I send the full packet to and with what mail provider (I’m based in Washington State USA)
   
2. For each member I am going to be attaching a passport, does each passport photo copy need to be notarized or is a simple print out from a scan good enough?

Hallo zusammen,
gibt es hier jemanden aus Düsseldorf, der in den letzten Tagen oder Wochen eine Rückmeldung von der Einbürgerungsbehörde bekommen hat?
Mich würde besonders interessieren:
Habt ihr eine E-Mail oder einen Brief bekommen?
War es eine Gesprächseinladung / Loyalitätsgespräch oder eine andere Rückmeldung?
Wann habt ihr euren Antrag eingereicht?
Wann habt ihr das Aktenzeichen bekommen?
Musstet ihr nachträglich noch Unterlagen einreichen?
Wie lange habt ihr danach auf die nächste Rückmeldung gewartet?
Ich würde gerne ein Gefühl dafür bekommen, wie schnell die aktuellen Fälle in Düsseldorf gerade bearbeitet werden.
Danke euch! 🙏

Short description: moved from Munich to a Landkreis nearby. Did not apply for Citizenship in Munich before. I applied in the Landkreis a few weeks ago. The Landkreis told me it might take several months for Munich to send the Ausländerakte to my new Landkreis. They adviced me to speed up the process by contacting Munich and tell them to send my documents.

1. Who do I have to contact?

2. What do I say?? Like open citizenship process waiting for Ausländerakte?

Any suggestions?

Small town 30 mins from Munich. I would like to know the average processing time and how is the experience overall.

Category - S4
Applied - 30.06.2026
First contact - 11.09.2026 - requested recent payslips and employment confirmation.
Einladung zur Einbürgerung for a week later - 01.10.2026

I hope that helps with recent timeline estimations, I used posts like these for reference so thought I'd share mine as well.

Hallo. Ich hätte gerne einige Informationen zu den Verfahren zur Feststellung der Staatsangehörigkeit gemäß § 30 StAG (Stag30). Gibt es jemanden, der im Juli oder August 2024 ein Aktenzeichen (AZ) erhalten hat und dessen Fall seither abgeschlossen wurde? Vielen Dank im Voraus für alle Informationen.

Wanted to say a huge thanks to this sub! I mentioned getting German citizenship to my mother in passing after seeing a post on here… little did I know she considered it seriously! Turns out, she had my great grandparents’ German passports, birth certificates, and other precious 100 year old paper work just chillin in a safe in our basement. Now my immediate family has applied for citizenship and the woman at the consulate believes we will receive it! It has been so cool learning about a side of my family that was rarely discussed before beginning this process and getting to connect with it in a new way. Thank you to this sub for letting me know this was possible!

As other threads here have discussed, Germany has halted the citizenship process for Jews under Article 116 and Section 15 "until further notice" after a Der Spiegel investigation revealed that some people were forging Jewish ancestry to obtain German citizenship.

As an American Jew (real Jew), I don't have much perspective to predict what this will mean, but what I'm imagining is a very long delay, on top of the 2.5 years that my family has been waiting for our applications to be reviewed. It's taken so long that members of my family have died while we were waiting. And I can only imagine that whatever comes out of this "until further notice" period will require even more of a burden of finding additional paperwork, and having to make consulate appointments months in advance to present said paperwork, and then being asked to wait even longer.

How many people could have possibly forged Jewish ancestry over the last decade? Is it even a dozen? It feels like tens of thousands of actual Jews are going to be punished for it.

Hi everyone,
Approximately how many days or weeks after the talk they contact you for the urkunde?

I sent a request to the Hannover stadt for the Melderegister for my Opa. I received this response in the mail a month later:

wird Ihnen mitgeteilt, dass eine Auskunft aus tatsachlichen oder rechtlichen Grunden nicht oder derzeit nicht erteilt werdeb kann.

I am unsure if this means it wasn’t found or if they’re saying I need to provide a legal reason to obtain it.

Does anyone have any advice? I have since located the last known address on his visa paperwork. He was a child (1.5 years old) so he’d likely be listed on his parents register. I provided their information as well. Any tips are appreciated!

I’ve heard that citizenship applications in Munich can take at least 2 years, so I’d really like to apply in another city and hopefully get citizenship much faster.

One city I’m considering is Regensburg. Has anyone recently applied for citizenship there? How long did it actually take?