More than 6,000 Brits have become Germans since Brexit vote

Thousands have applied for German passports since the Brexit vote. Photograph: Tim Reckmann/Flickr. - Credit: Archant

More than 6,000 Britons have taken German citizenship since the Brexit vote.

According to the EU’s statistical body Eurostat more than 6,000 UK nationals have taken up German citizenship with 3,000 becoming French since 2016.

There has been a sixfold increase in the number of people in the UK taking EU citizenship since 2015, when just 2,642 successful applications were made.

By 2018 – the latest year for the statistics – this number had risen to 16,193.

Applications for German citizenship had risen from 594 to 6,250 between 2015 and 2018.


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France has also experience a surge with the number rising from 374 to 3,268.

Sweden saw a rise of 1,346 UK nationals claiming citizenship, while passports for the Netherlands and Belgium also rose to 1,258 and 1,045 respectively.

Daniel Tetlow, co-author of a UK Migration Study by the Oxford in Berlin group and the Berlin Social Science Centre, told The Times the uncertainty surrounding Brexit was the main motivation.

‘I think the increase is due to securing lifelong EU rights many Brits rely on for their professional livelihoods and assumed they would always have when they moved to the EU and Germany

‘There is a great sense of uncertainty about UK citizenship status in the EU post-Brexit; plus, the realisation that they stand to lose their UK citizenship if they don’t get their applications in before the end of transition.’

One of those said to be considering applying for a French passport is Boris Johnson’s father Stanley.

Nigel Farage’s children are also said to have applied for German passports, something that led to the Brexiteer being branded a ‘hypocrite’ in the European parliament.

It comes after the news last year that almost half a million Britons had claimed for an Irish passport.