The International Citizenship Movement: Where did they come from, where do they go?

British citizenship applications by EU nationals are up 83% year on year, with 74,384 applications submitted, a record high according to government statistics. The Home Office speculated the increase is due to people wanting to confirm their status in the UK following Brexit.

But applications have been coming in from all over the world, not just the EU.

International shipping and courier company PACK & SEND have analysed a year’s worth of data (2020: Q3 to 2021: Q2) to find out who is most interested in becoming a British citizen, where residents of the UK might be going, and which country has the most sought-after citizenship in the world.

Pakistani was the number one nationality applying for British citizenship over the past year. 8,888 applications were submitted by Pakistani people between July 2020 and June 2021 for British citizenship by naturalisation, which is the legal process by which you choose to become a citizen of another country voluntarily.

Following on in second position were people of Indian nationality, who submitted 7,253 applications in the same period.

Italian, Romanian, and Polish people were the other most common nationalities submitting applications, each applying over six, five, and four thousand times respectively between 2020 and 2021.

The desire to move to and ultimately stay in the UK is likely due to the country’s flexibility with dual citizenship arrangements, the varied job market, and the world-renowned National Health Service.

Immigration is not a one-way concept however, and just as there are people moving into the UK, there are people going out. Delving into emigration from the UK, PACK & SEND used Google search data to investigate which of the 100 most populous countries in the world UK residents search for the most in relation to citizenship.

The top contender by far is Great Britain itself. There were 197,400 Google searches for “British citizenship” between July 2020 and June 2021, which equates to approximately 289 per capita (per 100,000 people).

This could be because 5 years of residency is a prerequisite to the application’s approval. Prospective citizens must also pay £1,330 to submit and complete the application process, including the costs of the compulsory ceremony where successful applicants receive a certificate of citizenship.

Due to restrictions imposed by Covid-19, citizenship ceremonies have been much harder to schedule, so the number of people able to complete the process dropped significantly. Just under 75 thousand people attended a ceremony in 2020, a 34% drop compared to 2019.