Lithuanian citizenship

Granting the Lithuanian citizenship for foreigners

About 32 thousand foreigners live in Lithuania. They account for about 1% of the total country population. It is one of the lowest figures in the entire European Union. Most of the foreigners are permanent residents of Lithuania. Another part of the foreigners live in Lithuania on family reunification, employment or academic basis. It is natural that the foreigners who decide to further live in Lithuania have a question about the receipt of Lithuanian citizenship.

Lithuanian citizenship is granted according to the law of Citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania.

Conditions for granting the citizenship are quite strict, so the granting of the Lithuanian citizenship is not common.

In this case we are discussing the requirements for persons, who seek to obtain Lithuanian citizenship by naturalization, i.e. without entering into marriage with a Lithuanian Citizen.

The law provides that a person, who wants to obtain the Lithuanian citizenship, must:

1. Permanently live in the Republic of Lithuania for the last 10 years. It means, that the person has a permanent residence permit in Lithuania and actually lives in Lithuania and not just occasionally comes to Lithuania;
2. In the time of application and decision process have the right to permanently live in the Republic of Lithuania. It means that a person, who submits the application to obtain the Lithuanian citizenship, at the time until the decision will be made on granting citizenship, has valid permission to permanently live in Lithuania and the validity of the permission does not end until the moment of decision making;
3. Pass the state language exam. Each person, who seeks to obtain Lithuanian citizenship must pass Lithuanian language exam. Lithuanian language exam includes test and interview. During this exam all four language skills are tested- reading, writing, listening and speaking. Sate language proficiency examinations are organized according to a pre-approved annual Schedule. This Schedule and other relevant information can be found in the National Examination Centre’s website and Education Development Centre’s website. A person, who has passed the state language exam a language proficiency certificate confirming it, is issued within 5 days.
4. Pass the exam about fundamentals of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania. Exam of Constitution fundamentals consists of test tasks during which a personal knowledge about the Constitution is checked. As the state language exam, exam of Constitution fundamentals ir organized according to a pre-approved annual Schedule, which can be found in the above-mentioned web addresses. There you can also find information on which schools the exams are carried out. Exams are held in each municipality, designated school, so the person does not necessarily need to come to Vilnius;
5. Have a legitimate livelihood. Person who has a job or business, provided income of which is enough to living, is considered as having a legitimate livelihood.
6. Be a stateless person or a Citizen of such state according to law of which in case of obtaining the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania the person looses the nationality of that country, or in writing express their will to renounce the citizenship of another state after he will be granted with the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania. Lithuanian citizenship cannot be a citizenship of another state, i.e. Lithuanian laws prohibit dual citizenship. Therefore, the person must submit a written statement that he will renounce the citizenship of another state when he will receive the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania;
7. Not comply with circumstances provided in Article 22 of this law. The law provides certain circumstances when the citizenship cannot be granted. This is linked with International crimes, criminal activities against the Lithuania, existing criminal records and so on.

The person who meets the requirements listed above is entitled to Lithuanian nationality.

Applications for granting the Lithuanian citizenship shall be filed to the President trough the territorial police office according to the place of the residence of the person. The application must be prepared and completed in Lithuanian language.
 

The person together with the application must include the following documents:

1. Passport or identity card;
2. A document confirming that the person in time of application submission has the right to permanently live in the Republic of Lithuania, i.e. the permission to permanently live in Lithuania;
3. Documents confirming that the person has been legally permanently living in the Republic of Lithuania for the last 10 years.
4. Documents confirming that the person has the lawful source of income;
5. Documents confirming that the person has passed the exams of state language and Constitution fundamentals of the Republic of Lithuania;
6. A certificate issued by the competent foreign state, in which the person lived before coming to Lithuania, institution confirming that before coming to the Republic of Lithuania has not been convicted in other state of a custodial sentence for a premeditated crime.

After the President of the Republic grants Lithuanian citizenship, a person must swear to Republic of Lithuania and he becomes a full righted citizen of Lithuania; the passport of the Republic of Lithuania is issued for him.

For more information and assistance in order to obtain citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania call our consultants +37068618228.