Proposed Changes to Irish Citizenship by Naturalisation
Proposed changes to Irish citizenship: what we know so far
Last updated 23 September 2026
The Irish Government has published the General Scheme of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Amendment Bill 2026, setting out significant proposed changes to the naturalisation process.
Read the official General Scheme published by the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration.
If introduced as currently proposed, the legislation would increase the residence period for many applicants and introduce new conditions concerning income, social welfare, language, civic knowledge and immigration compliance.
Naturally, the publication has caused concern, particularly among people who already have five years of residence or have an application in progress. However, the General Scheme is not yet law, and no new requirements are currently in force.
Proposed changes to Irish citizenship: what has been published
A General Scheme is the framework used to prepare a Bill. It tells us what the Government intends to change, but it is not the final wording that will be considered by the Oireachtas.
The next step is the preparation and publication of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Amendment Bill 2026. The Bill will then need to pass through the Dail and Seanad, where amendments may be proposed, before it can be signed by the President.
Even after the legislation is enacted, the changes will not necessarily take effect immediately. The General Scheme allows the Minister to commence different parts of the legislation on different dates.
For now, the existing naturalisation rules remain in place.
The standard residence requirement may increase to eight years
Under the current rules, most adult applicants need five years of reckonable residence, including one continuous year immediately before the date of application.
The proposal would increase this to eight years. An applicant would need two continuous years of residence immediately before applying, together with another six years accumulated during the previous ten years.
The General Scheme does not explain how travel outside Ireland would be treated during the proposed two-year continuous period. That detail may appear in the Bill, subsequent regulations or updated citizenship guidance.
It is also important to remember that living in Ireland for eight calendar years would not automatically mean that a person has eight years of reckonable residence. The calculation would still depend on the type and validity of the person’s immigration permissions.
Longer residence requirement for spouses of Irish citizens
The route for spouses and civil partners of Irish citizens would also become longer.
At present, an applicant generally needs three years of marriage or civil partnership and three years of reckonable residence. Under the proposal, both periods would increase to five years.
The applicant would need two continuous years of residence immediately before applying and a further three years accumulated during the preceding five years.
Language, civic knowledge and immigration-compliance requirements would also be introduced for this category.
As the General Scheme is currently written, the new income and social welfare conditions proposed for standard adult applications are not expressly extended to the spouse or civil partner route. This will need to be checked carefully when the full Bill is published.
A new financial self sufficiency test
For general adult applications, the Government proposes introducing a requirement to show sufficient resources and avoid becoming an unreasonable burden on the State.
An applicant would be expected to meet a minimum income level, have no relevant debt owed to Revenue or the Department of Social Protection and have no outstanding court fines.
The income threshold has not yet been decided. The Minister would set it later by regulation, having regard to matters such as average earnings, labour costs, the cost of living and the wider economic position of the State.
Until those regulations are published, nobody can say what salary would be required.
Social welfare and housing support
The proposal would also allow certain social welfare payments and housing supports to be considered when assessing whether an applicant is financially self-sufficient.
This does not mean that every benefit would automatically prevent naturalisation. The Government would first need to specify which payments and housing supports are covered. At this stage, it would be premature to make assumptions about individual benefits such as Child Benefit.
The assessment could consider the two years before the application, the position on the application date and the period while the application remains under consideration.
There is some flexibility in the proposal. The Minister could still approve an application where a prescribed benefit or housing support was received for no more than six months in total during the two years before applying.
Language and civic knowledge
Applicants under both the general adult route and the spouse or civil partner route could be required to demonstrate proficiency in English, Irish or Irish Sign Language.
A separate requirement could test an applicant’s understanding of Irish society, government, politics and the Constitution.
The General Scheme does not set a required language level, identify an approved examination or explain how the civic knowledge requirement would be assessed. These details would be introduced later.
The Minister would be able to create exemptions for certain applicants, including where the requirements could unfairly affect vulnerable people.
Good character and specified immigration offences
Good character is already an important part of every naturalisation application. The proposal would make it clear that this condition could not be waived in any circumstances.
A separate schedule lists specific offences and contraventions under citizenship, immigration, international protection and EU Treaty Rights legislation. Committing one of the listed offences would prevent a certificate of naturalisation from being granted.
This would operate separately from the broader good-character assessment, which allows the Minister to consider an applicant’s conduct and personal circumstances more generally.
Applicants would need to remain eligible while waiting
The proposals would make it clear that meeting the requirements on the day of application would not be enough.
An applicant would be expected to continue residing lawfully in Ireland, maintain the required financial position, remain of good character and avoid the listed immigration offences until a decision is made.
This makes it especially important to keep immigration permission valid throughout the process. Applying for naturalisation does not extend an IRP or give the applicant a separate right to remain in Ireland.
Temporary Protection and EU Treaty Rights
The General Scheme proposes changing Section 16A of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 1956. This is the section that determines which periods of residence can be counted for naturalisation.
The proposed exclusions include certain periods based on Temporary Protection.
They also cover temporary permission issued while an EU Treaty Rights application is being considered where the person is later found not to have been entitled to reside under those rules. Similar exclusions are proposed for unsuccessful reviews and cases involving fraud or abuse of rights.
These provisions appear to focus on applications that are ultimately refused, revoked or found to be invalid. A person whose EU Treaty Rights application was successful is in a different position, although the decision, recognised period of residence and immigration history would still need to be reviewed.
The proposal would also give the Minister power to designate other temporary or limited permissions as non-reckonable in the future.
What could change for children born in Ireland
The General Scheme deals with two separate situations involving children born in Ireland.
Citizenship at birth through a parent’s residence
The first concerns citizenship acquired at birth through a parent’s residence. In certain circumstances, a child born in Ireland qualifies where one parent has three years of qualifying residence during the four years before the birth.
Under the proposal, the parent’s residence would be assessed using the expanded exclusions in Section 16A. This means that some temporary or non-qualifying permissions could stop counting towards the parent’s three years.
Importantly, the proposal says that this change would not apply to a person born before the relevant provision commences.
Naturalisation of children born in Ireland
The second situation concerns a child who was born in Ireland without an automatic entitlement to citizenship but later accumulates three years of reckonable residence. The General Scheme does not directly remove or increase that three-year route.
However, the proposal stating that good character cannot be waived may affect how some applications involving minors are assessed.
Children of naturalised Irish citizens
A child does not automatically become Irish when a parent completes naturalisation.
The existing legislation allows a naturalised parent to submit a separate application on behalf of a minor child. The Minister may use discretion to waive certain standard naturalisation conditions, but the child must still go through an application process.
The General Scheme does not propose replacing this process with automatic citizenship.
Proposed citizenship changes and applications already submitted
This is not yet fully clear.
The explanatory note for the proposed changes to reckonable residence says that the new exclusions under that part of the legislation would not apply to applicants who submitted their naturalisation applications before the provision commenced.
In practical terms, this appears intended to protect pending applications from the new exclusions concerning Temporary Protection, unsuccessful EU Treaty Rights cases and other temporary permissions that may later be prescribed.
However, that protection is specifically connected to the reckonable-residence amendments in Head 9 of the General Scheme. It is not clearly written as a general protection against every proposed change.
At present, the document does not expressly confirm whether pending applications would also be protected from the increase to eight years, the longer spouse requirement, language and civic knowledge assessments, or the proposed financial conditions.
The transitional wording in the full Bill will therefore be crucial. Until it is published, it is not possible to guarantee that every pending application will be considered entirely under the current rules.
What about gaps between IRP cards
The General Scheme does not introduce a general rule forgiving gaps in immigration permission.
Under current citizenship guidance, time spent without valid permission is normally not reckonable. Even a short gap can affect an application, particularly when it falls within the continuous residence period immediately before applying.
Where a renewal was submitted before the previous IRP expired, the applicant may have evidence supporting continuity. Current immigration arrangements may also allow the conditions of the previous permission to continue temporarily while an in-time renewal is processed.
However, that does not necessarily mean that every period after the expiry date will automatically be accepted for citizenship purposes.
Anyone with a possible gap should keep previous IRP cards, renewal confirmations, payment receipts, approval letters and correspondence with Immigration Service Delivery. EU Treaty Rights applicants should also keep their decision letters and evidence showing the period for which their rights were recognised.
These cases need to be assessed individually rather than by looking only at the dates printed on the physical cards.
A new ground for revoking naturalised citizenship
The proposal would also amend Section 19 of the 1956 Act, which deals with revocation of certificates of naturalisation.
A new ground would allow revocation where this is considered to be in the interests of public policy, public order or national security.
This concerns citizenship obtained through naturalisation and should not be confused with citizenship acquired automatically by birth or descent.
Stamp 4 rules are separate
The proposed citizenship changes do not alter the current route from an employment permit to Stamp 4.
Eligible Critical Skills Employment Permit or qualifying Hosting Agreement holders may still apply for a Stamp 4 upgrade after 21 months. General Employment Permit holders may apply after 57 months, provided the other conditions are met.
Receiving Stamp 4 does not make someone an Irish citizen. The person must continue renewing their immigration permission when required until the naturalisation process has been completed.
For naturalisation applicants, Irish citizenship is acquired after attending the citizenship ceremony and making the declaration of fidelity, not when the application is submitted or when an approval is first issued.
Should people apply now
There is no answer that applies to everyone.
Someone who is already eligible under the current rules may reasonably wish to have their position reviewed while those rules remain in force. But concern about future legislation should not lead a person to submit an application before they genuinely qualify.
Before applying, the person should confirm their reckonable residence, travel history, continuous residence, immigration permissions and any possible gaps. They should also make sure that the application can be fully supported by the required evidence.
An application submitted quickly but without sufficient eligibility or documentation may still be rejected or refused.
What happens next with the proposed naturalisation changes
The next major development will be the publication of the full Irish Nationality and Citizenship Amendment Bill 2026.
That document should provide a clearer picture of the final requirements and, importantly, how the new rules would apply to applications already in progress.
Further regulations may still be needed to set the income threshold, identify relevant social welfare payments and housing supports, define the language standard and establish the civic knowledge assessment.
Until the legislation is passed and the relevant provisions are commenced, the current naturalisation rules continue to apply.
Review your naturalisation position
MWeds will continue following the Bill and all official guidance. We will publish further updates as soon as reliable information becomes available.
This article is based on the General Scheme published in September 2026 and provides general information only. The proposals may change before the legislation is enacted. Each naturalisation application must be considered according to the applicant’s individual residence and immigration history.