Finland Times

File Photo – Lehtikuva.

Finnish citizenship was granted in 2015 to 7,921 foreign citizens permanently resident in Finland—339 lower than one year before, according to Statistics Finland.

 

In 2015, Finnish citizenship was granted by far most often to citizens of Russia with number being 1,728. The figure was close on 600 down from the year before.

 

Somali citizens were the second largest group of recipients of Finnish citizenship, numbering 955. The third largest group of recipients of Finnish citizenship was citizens of Iraq, numbering 560, and the fourth largest group was citizens of Estonia, numbering 420, the statistics show.

 

Of the persons receiving Finnish citizenship, 4,122 were women and 3,799 men. The average age of men receiving Finnish citizenship was 26,9 years and that of women 28,5 years. Among the persons having been granted Finnish citizenship, 2,301 were aged under 18 and 189 were older than 65.

 

At the end of 2015, there were 95,658 persons permanently resident in Finland who held the citizenship of some other country in addition to Finnish citizenship. Of these, 19,534 were native-born citizens of Finland, who had been granted citizenship in another country. Altogether, 76,124 persons were foreign citizens, who had also been granted Finnish citizenship.

 

The largest dual nationality groups at the end of 2015 were citizens of Russia, 25,572, Sweden, 7,007, Estonia, 4,147, the United States, 3,810 and Somalia, 3,592.