How common are falsified German citizenship applications?

German police have made another arrest related to fraudulent citizenship applications. What do the arrests mean for citizenship applicants, and just how common are fraudulent applications?

Nuremberg police suspect citizenship scammers

Nuremberg police have detained two men suspected of operating an organised crime group that facilitated the fraudulent acquisition of documents required for German residence permit or citizenship applications.

The suspects allegedly arranged for proficient German speakers to impersonate the actual applicants during German language and naturalisation tests. These tests require candidates to present ID and confirm their identity immediately before the exam. To circumvent this, the stand-ins were provided with counterfeit ID cards featuring their photograph but bearing the personal details of the supposed test-taker.

The organised crime group would allegedly charge between 2.500 and 6.000 euros for these services. Police said the scale of the scheme was larger than previously suspected, extending across Bavaria with cases also found in North Rhine-Westphalia. They expect an ongoing investigation to reveal cases in the “high double-digit[s]”.

BR reports on the most recent arrests in Nuremberg (Video credit: BR24 / YouTube.com)

How common are fraudulent citizenship applications?

The case in Nuremberg is not an isolated one. In June 2024, Die Zeit reported on “hundreds of suspected cases” of falsified German language certificates in Stuttgart and WDR reported on four men in Bonn who were sentenced to serve prison time after selling more than 1.500 falsified German language certificates. 

The prevalence of these stories in the German-language media and the recent case in Nuremberg would suggest that so many people are fraudulently obtaining citizenship that the application process is not fit for purpose and applicants should face more scrutiny.

In reality, it is yet unknown how widespread the problem is. In October 2025, the far-right AfD - which has said that should it enter government, it would deport and strip German citizens with a recent migration background of their passports - submitted a request to the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition government.

“According to media reports, there is a nationwide, professionally run trade in forged certificates of successful participation in language and integration courses, which are used to obtain German citizenship or residence permits illegally,” the AfD wrote, before posing 12 specific questions on what the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition plans to do about the problem.

The government responded that it “does not have any reliable information on the number of forged language and other certificates that have been submitted in naturalisation and residence permit proceedings”.

What figures are there to go on to understand the scope of the problem? According to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), 291.955 people were naturalised in Germany in 2024. Figures for 2025 have not yet been released, but the number of naturalisations is likely to be similar or higher.

If recently naturalised citizens are proven to have falsified their German citizenship applications, they can have their citizenship revoked. The Federal Administrative Office has revoked German citizenship from 1.009 people in the past five years and 270 of these revocations happened in 2025. However, the office does not record whether citizenship is revoked due to forged certificates or for a different reason. 

Even if we assume that all 270 people who had their citizenship revoked in 2025 - when these fraudulent schemes are assumed to have become more widespread - had it revoked because they submitted fraudulent documents as part of their application, they would still make up a minuscule proportion of the overall naturalisations.

What does increased suspicion mean for citizenship applicants?

It is too early to know how big the problem is, but widespread coverage of the topic in the German-language media and pressure from the AfD are at least partially responsible for the coalition government taking a harder line on naturalisation procedures.

In November 2025, the government amended its Nationality Act. The amendment outlines that people who have falsified information as part of their German citizenship application will be blocked from reapplying for 10 years.

Now that examiners have been briefed to be even more vigilant when checking IDs and during tests, residents genuinely taking tests and submitting authentic documents are also likely to face more scrutiny.

Migrando, which advises international residents on German immigration law, has urged people to take extra care during every stage of the residence permit or citizenship application process. The organisation advises only taking tests with official authorities, e.g. at a Volkshochschule, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), or Goethe Institute.

Applicants are advised not to engage with any test services advertised to them via social media or messenger services, namely TikTok and WhatsApp. If they have taken a test and are unsure of the test service’s authenticity, they can have documents checked by the Foreigners’ Office before submitting their final citizenship application.