Indicator history

Finnish citizenship can be based on the citizenship of a parent or adoptive parent (parentage principle), birth in Finland (birthplace principle), the parents’ marriage (legitimation), application (naturalisation) or declaration. A child of foreign parentage who is born in Finland will obtain Finnish citizenship, if he/she does not automatically obtain his/her parents’ citizenship. If the child obtains his/her parents’ citizenship automatically or is entitled to obtain it (e.g. upon registration of the birth, after establishment of paternity or by declaration), the child does not obtain Finnish citizenship at birth. A child born in Finland will automatically obtain Finnish citizenship, if there is no information on the citizenship of its parents or of their statelessness.

A requirement for citizenship ist that one lives in Finland and that you have done so for a sufficient length of time. Period of residence is of sufficient length, if one has lived in Finland: a) for at least five years without interruption (continuous period of residence) or for total of seven years after one has reached the age of 15 (accumulated period of residence), of which one has lived in Finland for the past two years without interruption.