Record immigrants granted Finnish citizenship in 2017

A total of 12,219 foreign nationals, permanently living in Finland were granted Finnish citizenship in 2017, according to Statistics Finland.

The number is 2,844 higher than 2016 and is the highest since the independence of the country.

In 2017, Finnish citizenship was granted by far most often to citizens of Russia, numbering 2,758 among those having been granted Finnish citizenship.

The number was 730 more than in the year before. Somali citizens were the second largest group of recipients of Finnish citizenship, numbering 957. The third most Finnish citizenships were granted to citizens of Iraq, 742 and the fourth most to Estonian citizens, 705.

In all, 117,000 persons living in Finland have dual citizenship

In 2017, altogether 98 per cent of those having been granted Finnish citizenship retained their former citizenship. At the end of 2017, there were 117,024 persons permanently resident in Finland who held the citizenship of some other country in addition to Finnish citizenship.

Their number grew by 11 per cent from the previous year. Of them, 21,099 were native-born citizens of Finland who have been granted citizenship in another country and 95,925 were foreign citizens who have been granted Finnish citizenship.

The largest dual nationality groups at the end of 2017 were citizens of Russia, 30,088, Sweden, 7,759, Somalia, 5,590, Estonia, 5,291, and Iraq, 4,152.