Information for those who have applied for Norwegian citizenship

Today, UDI has over 22,000 unprocessed applications for Norwegian citizenship. Of these, over 7,000 applications are from Syrian citizens.

We are currently processing applications from those who met with the police in September and October 2021. In September 2021, over 400 applications were submitted. This also applies to those who have a reduced required residence time due to sufficient income. We will update the information about which applications we process monthly. 

Due to the high number of applications from Syrian citizens, waiting times have unfortunately increased several times. The long waiting time is also due to the fact that the civil war in Syria has made it difficult for the Norwegian authorities to assess the authenticity of Syrian passports and ID documents. It can therefore take time to investigate the identity of Syrian citizens who apply for Norwegian citizenship. We fully understand that the long waiting time is frustrating.

We will not be able to provide any further information about the waiting time for your application even if you contact us  

We understand that many people want to contact us because of the waiting time. Our most important source of information about waiting time is this website. The information is updated regularly. We will not be able to provide any other information about the waiting time for your application than what you will find here. You therefore do not need to contact us if you have questions about the waiting time for processing your application. 

You will be notified by email or SMS when the police forward your application to UDI. 

We will contact you if there are any documents missing that we need to process your application. You will also receive a letter from us as soon as your application has been processed.  

More applicants will have their application processed automatically 

Some people already have their application automatically processed shortly after they have applied. For a long time, we have been working on measures to ensure that even more applications from Syrian citizens are automatically processed. More people therefore get answers faster. This applies to both newer and older applications. 

You cannot contact UDI to have your application processed automatically. 

All applications for Norwegian citizenship are fully or partially processed automatically. Our computer system uses the information we have about you, and assesses whether Norwegian citizenship can be granted without a caseworker looking at the application. The computer system is not able to assess all types of information, and therefore many applications must still be processed by a caseworker. 

You can read more about automatic processing of applications here. 

Children with parents who have become Norwegian citizens will be given priority 

We will prioritise applications for children under the age of 18 who have not yet received a response. This applies to children in cases where both parents are registered with parental responsibility in the National Population Register (Folkeregisteret) and have obtained Norwegian citizenship. The same applies if the child has only one parent with registered sole parental responsibility for the child, and this parent has become a Norwegian citizen. 

If you have children who have applied for Norwegian citizenship, this means the following: 

• If the child has one parent who has registered sole parental responsibility, and this parent has become a Norwegian citizen: The child will receive an answer to their application within two months from the date the parent became a Norwegian citizen. 
• If the child has two parents with registered joint parental responsibility for the child, and both parents have become Norwegian citizens: The child will receive a response to their application within two months from the date the parents became Norwegian citizens. 
• If the child has two parents with registered joint parental responsibility, and only one parent has become a Norwegian citizen: We do not prioritize the application from the child. 

If we need more information to process the child's application, we will send a letter stating what information we are missing within two months from the date the parents, or the person with sole parental responsibility, became Norwegian citizens. 

We cannot guarantee that family members will receive an answer to their applications at the same time 

We have chosen to work in a way that, overall, will lead to more people getting a response to the application faster. This means that we unfortunately cannot guarantee that everyone in a family will have their applications processed at the same time. 

We cannot give priority to applications for Norwegian citizenship even if one or more of your family members have received a response to their applications. Children under the age of 18 who have parents with Norwegian citizenship will still be given priority, as explained above. 

This information was last updated on 

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