Soaring citizenship applications prompt Armenia to digitize procedure

he government plans to make changes in the citizenship application procedures.

The services will be digitized and the fees for applying for/or revoking citizenship will be revised.

According to Armen Ghazaryan, the Director of the Migration and Citizenship Service, the move will significantly improve the efficiency of the processes.

Speaking with Armenpress, Ghazaryan presented data showing the overloaded process.

“In the 2000s there were about three to four thousand citizenship request applications, since 2010 the number was five to six thousand annually, and since 2018 the number of applications for Armenian citizenship has abruptly increased. This indicator reached its highest point in 2022, surpassing 25,000. In 2023 the pace decreased a little, amounting to 19,000. In 2024, in the nine months, we already have 16,060 applications. And these are only the numbers of the applications seeking to obtain citizenship, and in addition to this we have an average of three thousand applications on renouncing citizenship. This means that our service is studying up to 30,000 cases pertaining to citizenship every year,” Ghazaryan said, adding that the current instruments are insufficient to deal with such high number of cases. Thus, the authorities propose to introduce an electronic procedure for citizenship applications.

Citizens will upload their documents in the system instead of in-person visitations to various agencies or departments. The applicants will make an appointment and visit the administrative body only once, after the application is approved and all necessary data uploaded.

Ghazaryan said the changes will help to avoid the time-consuming correspondence between government agencies.

The fee for applying for Armenian citizenship will be raised from the current 1000 drams to 50,000 drams, while the fee for renouncing citizenship will increase from the current 25,000 drams to 150,000 drams.

The current fees have never been revised since 1997. The new fees will not cover refugees, including the forcibly displaced persons of Nagorno-Karabakh who have temporary protection status.

After passing parliament the changes will take effect in ten months.

Published by Armenpress, original at https://armenpress.am/en/article/1203236