The naturalization rate is the ratio of the number persons who acquired the citizenship of a country where they were living during a given year to the number of non-national residents in the country at the beginning of that year, Eurostat said when publishing the latest figures on Thursday.

Of the nearly 1 million people to acquire EU citizenship via naturalization in 2022, Estonia and Latvia both recorded the lowest rate thereof at 0.4 acquired citizenships per 100 non-national residents, followed by Austria and Bulgaria at 0.7 and Malta and the Czech Republic at 0.8 per 100 non-national residents.

Romania, meanwhile, recorded the highest naturalization rate among EU states that year, with 26.8 citizenships granted per 100 non-national residents.

This was followed with a significant gap by the Netherlands at 44 and Italy at 4.2 citizenships per 100 non-national residents.

In absolute numbers, Italy granted the highest number of citizenships last year at 213,790, accounting for 22 percent of the EU total.

They were followed by Spain with 181,800 citizenships and 18 percent and Germany with 166,600 and 17 percent of last year's overall numbers.

The largest increases on year in citizenships granted to non-national residents in 2022 were likewise recorded in Italy with 92,200, Spain with 37,600 and Germany with 36,600 citizenships.

The largest decreases, meanwhile, were recorded in France, the Netherlands and Portugal, with citizenships down 15,900, 9,300 and 3,700, respectively.

According to the figures, 87 percent of all those granted the citizenship of their EU country of residence last year were citizens of a non-EU country.

Citizens of another EU country accounted for another 12 percent of those naturalized last year, with the rest either having had an unknown previous citizenship (1 percent) or been stateless (0.7 percent) previously.

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